Cloudflare Forces AI Companies to Pay for Content

Cloudflare, one of the leading companies in internet security and infrastructure, has announced a new and strict policy regarding the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. To protect the intellectual property of website owners, the company has demanded a clear distinction between search engines and AI bots. This move is expected to fundamentally change the data exchange ecosystem on the global network. This was reported by Techcrunch.com news says.

According to Cloudflare, starting September 15, 2026, the company's default settings will automatically block "mixed-use crawlers"—bots that combine search and AI training purposes—from accessing pages with advertisements. This means giants like Google must separate their bots into two distinct roles: one for traditional search and another for training AI models.

Copyright and Fair Competition

Currently, many publishers and site owners want their content to appear in search engines but oppose the use of this data for free AI model training. Matthew Prince, founder and CEO of Cloudflare, noted that today, more than half of internet traffic is generated by bots rather than humans. This necessitates urgent measures to create a sustainable digital ecosystem.

Cloudflare openly criticized the world's largest search engine (referring to Google), stating it possesses twice as much data as other AI companies. This is because site owners feel forced to provide their data for AI training to avoid dropping out of search results. Although Google provides an opt-out via its Google Extended bot, Cloudflare considers this insufficient.

New Economic Model: Pay Per Use

The company is offering not only restrictions but also revenue streams for publishers. The previously announced Pay Per Crawl system is now evolving into a Pay Per Use model. Through this system, publishers can receive payment every time their content creates value for an AI.

These new rules apply to all new Cloudflare platform customers, newly created sites, and all users on free plans. These changes may prompt tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft to rethink their strategies and enter direct contracts with publishers for quality content.

This news is also significant for Uzbek content creators and media representatives. Given the widespread use of Cloudflare services by local sites, there is a high probability of increased control over the assimilation of Uzbek-language data by AI, potentially creating additional monetization opportunities.