# Block AI crawlers and assistants independently with managed rules

By Steven Van · 2026-10-29

The AI Bots managed ruleset lets you set separate log or block actions for crawlers and assistants, from the dashboard or CLI, on all plans.

Vercel Firewall's AI Bots managed ruleset can now treat AI crawlers and AI assistants as two separate groups, so each can be logged or blocked on its own. [The change](<https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules>) applies to [Vercel](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/tools/vercel>) projects on every plan.

## Two categories

- **AI crawlers:** bots that collect content for indexing and model training.

- **AI assistants:** bots that fetch pages in response to user actions or search queries.

One example is blocking AI crawlers while still allowing AI assistants to retrieve content to answer users' questions. Vercel updates the rules as new bots are added.

## Setting it up in the dashboard

Open the project's Security &gt; Firewall &gt; Rules page. Under Bot Management, enable AI Bots and select the gear icon beside it. Set an action for AI crawlers and for AI assistants, then review and publish the changes.

## Setting it up with the CLI

The same settings can be changed with the Vercel CLI. The announcement's example blocks crawlers and logs assistant requests:

- vercel firewall rules edit ai-bots --category ai-crawlers --action deny --yes

- vercel firewall rules edit ai-bots --category ai-assistants --action log --yes

Review the pending changes with vercel firewall diff, then apply them with vercel firewall publish.

[![](<https://assets.vercel.com/image/upload/contentful/image/e5382hct74si/1OgCQLCwxxjTR2m0dg2X55/ecec064f56edf89ddf17a13a8457d07e/ai_bots_and_crawlers_og.png>)](<https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules>)

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Sources

[Original source](<https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules>)

[Read Block AI crawlers and assistants independently with managed rules on Creators Toolbox](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules>)

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Canonical source: https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules