Cloudflare CEO says bots now make up over half of web traffic, and ads won't pay for it
What happened
Cloudflare 的数据显示，今年五月自动化流量（主要是 AI 爬虫和代理）首次超过了人类流量，按趋势五年后可能达到人类流量的 1000 倍。CEO Matthew Prince 指出，运行了三十年的广告模式在这里会失效，因为机器人不会点广告。他正在推动一套让网站主可以向 AI 爬虫收费的框架，但正文没披露具体的定价或分成细节。另外，Cloudfl...
Coverage
Follow the reports to see the story from different sides.
- The Verge · AIPickCloudflare CEO says bots now make up over half of web traffic, and ads won't pay for it
Cloudflare data shows automated traffic surpassed human traffic in May 2026, and is projected to hit 1,000x human traffic in five years. CEO Matthew Prince argues the 30-year-old ad model breaks down because bots don't click ads. He's pushing a framework where site owners can charge AI scrapers for access, though the post doesn't disclose pricing or revenue-share details. Cloudflare also laid off over 1,000 people (20% of staff) earlier this year; Prince wrote a WSJ op-ed on picking roles to replace with AI.
Heat over time
Not enough continuous observations to draw a trend yet.