AI Business
Sep 18, 2026
Cloudflare CEO highlights rise of bot traffic and calls for AI companies to compensate content creators
Sep 18, 2026
AI Summary
Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince reports that automated bot traffic has surpassed human web traffic, with nearly 60% of requests coming from bots. He advocates for AI companies to pay content creators for the use of their content, emphasizing the need for sustainable media models that recognize and compensate creators.
- Cloudflare's CEO Matthew Prince projected that bot traffic would exceed human traffic by the end of next year, but this milestone was reached in May 2023.
- Nearly 60% of web requests are now from bots, with predictions that automated traffic could be 1,000 times greater than human traffic in five years.
- Many bots are AI crawlers that gather content for training models without returning traffic or revenue to the original sites.
- Cloudflare has introduced a new feature called “Disallow AI Training,” allowing websites to block AI crawlers from training on their content while remaining indexed for search.
- Major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have agreed to this new setting.
- The move comes amid ongoing copyright lawsuits against AI companies from various content creators and publishers.
- Prince emphasizes the importance of attribution and compensation for content creators to build sustainable media models.
- He suggests that recognition for creators, akin to prestigious awards, is necessary to ensure fair compensation and acknowledgment in the evolving digital landscape.
botsweb trafficcloudflareai companiesbusiness model