Cloudflare Has Blocked 416 Billion AI Bot Requests Since July 1

As the large connection models powering generative AI tools slurp up ever much information crossed the web, Cloudflare cofounder and CEO Matthew Prince said astatine WIRED’s Big Interview lawsuit successful San Francisco connected Thursday that the net infrastructure institution has blocked much than 400 cardinal AI bot requests for its customers since July 1.

The enactment comes aft the institution announced a Content Independence Day successful July—an inaugural with salient publishers and AI firms to artifact AI crawlers by default connected contented creators’ enactment unless the AI companies wage for access. Since July 2024, Cloudflare has offered customers tools to artifact AI bots from scraping their content. Cloudflare told WIRED that the fig of AI bots blocked since July 1, 2025 is 416 billion.

“The concern exemplary of the net has ever been to make contented that drives postulation [to a website] and past merchantability either things, subscriptions, oregon ads,” Prince told WIRED’s enforcement editor, Brian Barrett. “What I deliberation radical don't realize, though, is that AI is simply a level shift. The concern exemplary of the net is astir to alteration dramatically. I don't cognize what it's going to alteration to, but it's what I'm spending astir each waking hr reasoning about.”

As a company, Cloudflare’s offerings are geared toward making it faster and safer to entree contented online. But arsenic the AI manufacture has exploded and AI giants person emerged, Prince says he’s go progressively focused connected however Cloudflare tin leverage its presumption to discourage consolidation and safeguard the net arsenic a spot wherever businesses and creators of each size tin survive—or, ideally, thrive.

“We request to beryllium capable to marque definite that businesses ample and tiny flourish connected a just playing ground,” Prince said. “That is the aboriginal that we're trying to play for. That's the champion happening for our business, due to the fact that that's much radical to beryllium customers of ours. That's much net for america to beryllium capable to protect.”

Prince specifically highlighted concerns astir Google’s policies astir its hunt and AI crawlers. As a large AI subordinate jostling for dominance, Google combined its hunt and AI crawlers into one, truthful blocking its AI scraper besides blocks a site’s quality to beryllium indexed successful Google search. The determination has enactment contented creators successful a bind, due to the fact that they don’t privation AI models to bid connected their creations, but they typically request their spot successful Google hunt to assistance audiences find their material.

“You can't opt retired of 1 without opting retired of both, which is simply a existent challenge—it's crazy,” Prince said. “It shouldn't beryllium that you tin usage your monopoly presumption of yesterday successful bid to leverage and person a monopoly presumption successful the marketplace of tomorrow.”