Cloudflare revenue increases 39% as sites try to stop AI agents

Cloudflare made a record revenue of $782.5 million in the third quarter, 39% more than one year before. The chief executive, Matthew Prince, said that some customers see AI agents as a “bane” and want to keep them out. Its shares went up about 15% after the market closed. Cloudflare has tools that stop agents or get money from their traffic.

The cost problem

Prince gave an example. An agent can read 1,000 restaurant menus for one user, and the user selects one. The other 999 sites have a cost and get no benefit.

Cloudflare said that agent traffic will be 1,000 times more than clicks from persons. Prince says that containers (units that operate software on cloud servers) cannot keep up at a low cost. Prince gives Workers, a cloud system, as the replacement.

The numbers

• Revenue: $782.5 million, up 39% year on year.
• Web: about 5% selected protection since 1 July.
• Shares: up about 15% after the market closed.

What is not known

Prince made all claims about agent traffic and about containers. Cloudflare gave no cost data for containers.

Prince also thinks that criminals and nation-state actors used the PHP2Shell flaws before disclosure. Prince says that its record checks will show this. No result is known.

Insight: Cloudflare gets paid when sites stop agents and when they charge them

Meta, a Cloudflare customer, has new Muse agents. Prince says they will make more traffic that other companies want to tame. An Encore test found that 94% of 1,500 sites could not accept an agent, and a stopped agent finishes its task on a rival site. This seems to be a toll gate: Cloudflare gets money if sites stop agents and if they charge them. If you stop agents, they can go to a rival.