Cloudflare CEO says bots now make up most web traffic

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In short: Cloudflare’s CEO says automated bots now generate more web traffic than humans, and that could force websites to charge AI tools for access.

What's going on

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said on The Verge’s Decoder podcast that the internet has crossed a milestone, automated traffic has now passed human traffic. Cloudflare previously said in June that bots made up more than half of all internet traffic, and Prince said the share is still rising.

Bots are automated programs that visit websites, like a robot visitor clicking links and copying pages. Prince said this growth is being driven by AI companies “scraping” the web, meaning they collect huge amounts of online text and images to build and improve AI systems. He also pointed to “AI agents,” which are tools that try to do tasks on the web for people.

Prince argued the old way of paying for websites, mainly ads, does not work well when the visitors are bots. Bots do not buy products or click ads in the way people do. He said that if bot traffic keeps expanding, websites and the companies running internet infrastructure will need another way to cover costs like servers and bandwidth.

Cloudflare sits between many websites and incoming traffic, like a gatekeeper at a venue. Prince said Cloudflare is working on options that would let site owners block AI crawlers, allow them, or potentially require payment. He compared the idea to paying tiny amounts per use, like dropping a few coins in a tip jar each time an AI system pulls information.

What to watch

Prince said Cloudflare plans to change default settings for its free customers to block Google from AI training starting September 15, unless site owners choose otherwise. If more website owners turn on blocking or payment, it could change how AI companies gather data and how publishers get paid.

Source: The Verge AI