Cloudflare CEO says AI agents will become the primary users of the web

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, spoke on a panel at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon. Cloudflare stops bots on websites for its customers. Prince said agents will be the primary users of the web, and the web must find a new business model. Cloudflare data showed bot traffic above human traffic for the first time in 2026.

The problem

Prince says the web has used ads for 30 years. Agents do not click ads. One agent that looks at 1,000 restaurants helps one restaurant. The other restaurants have the cost.

Prince says micropayments are the possible answer. These are very small payments, made each time an agent uses content.

The numbers

Prince says micropayments must make 10 million payments each second. Visa makes 80,000 payments each second.

Google made payments to publishers for AI training use, after Cloudflare said it will stop AI bots by default. Publishers who get these payments say they are as low as a tenth of a percent of their ad income.

What is not known

Prince says all the primary AI companies must agree, and a company must make the payment system.

Prince also says agents prefer large names, and startups get less than large companies. Nick Thompson said Cloudflare controls a large percent of web traffic.

Insight: Cloudflare is making itself the agent gatekeeper

Cloudflare lists 14 agent problems and starts a coalition for agent identity standards. Prince calls Cloudflare a representative for publishers. Prince also told Meta that Cloudflare can stop it. This reads as a move to be the gate: the firm that stops bots also sets the price and rules. Leaders with websites must find out if they accept one firm in that role.