Can Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince save the web from AI?
News Source
β’2026-09-26T10:00:00-04:00
π° What Happened
Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince spoke to The Verge's Decoder podcast about bots and the future of the web. Cloudflare sits between websites and the automated programs that visit them.
The company found in June that bots made up more than half of all internet traffic. That share keeps growing as AI companies collect more web data and AI agents act for people online.
Cloudflare lets website owners block AI tools, allow them, or only allow tools that pay for access.
π The Backstory
Cloudflare runs a large network that protects and speeds up websites. That puts it in a strong spot to see how AI is changing the internet.
Earlier this year the company cut more than a thousand jobs, about 20 per cent of its staff. Prince wrote a newspaper opinion piece about how he chose which roles to replace with AI.
He and host Nilay Patel also discussed which kinds of information may be worth paying for in future.
π― Why It Matters
If AI bots take more of the web's traffic, small websites may lose readers and money. How sites charge AI firms could change what you can find online.
Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince spoke to The Verge's Decoder podcast about bots and the future of the web. Cloudflare sits between websites and the automated programs that visit them.
The company found in June that bots made up more than half of all internet traffic. That share keeps growing as AI companies collect more web data and AI agents act for people online.
Cloudflare lets website owners block AI tools, allow them, or only allow tools that pay for access.
Cloudflare runs a large network that protects and speeds up websites. That puts it in a strong spot to see how AI is changing the internet.
Earlier this year the company cut more than a thousand jobs, about 20 per cent of its staff. Prince wrote a newspaper opinion piece about how he chose which roles to replace with AI.
He and host Nilay Patel also discussed which kinds of information may be worth paying for in future.
If AI bots take more of the web's traffic, small websites may lose readers and money. How sites charge AI firms could change what you can find online.