Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has warned that the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) bots online is accelerating and could surpass human internet traffic by 2027.
Speaking at a recent conference, Prince highlighted that the popularity of AI chatbots such as OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Gemini has significantly shifted web traffic patterns over the past six months.
“The internet landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace in terms of who is browsing and what they are doing,” Prince said.
Historically, bot traffic accounted for around 20% of internet activity, including Google bots, hackers, spammers, and other automated systems. With the rise of generative AI, the demand for data has surged dramatically.
Prince warned that we are entering a new era where, by 2027, AI bot traffic could surpass that of human users, fundamentally altering the dynamics of online activity.
