Is msnbot being used to train AI models?

(Summary: msnbot seems to be downloading my website for training an AI model)

The msnbot was retired a decade ago for indexing the web, replaced by bingbot. You can tell bingbot not to train AI models by setting a meta tag eg <meta name="bingbot" content="noarchive">.

A month ago I started using this tag for bingbot. After this the defunct msnbot starting hitting my website HARD. I've verified the source IP addresses, and they are genuine.

The pattern of pages being indexed is clearly for AI. Search engines and AI indexers slurp my content in different ways. msnbot appears to be taking the data in a way that AI indexers do.

I can't find any information about this, or any reason why msnbot has been reactivated in 2026.

I'm hoping some people can help!