Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince predicts AI bots will surpass human web traffic by 2027 due to generative AI’s data demands.
Prince explained that when people shop for things, they might go to five websites. But AI bots often visit 1,000 times more sites to find answers. So one bot might visit 5,000 websites for one task.
Before AI tools became popular, only about 20% of internet traffic was from bots. Most of this was from Google searching websites. Now with AI growing fast, the amount of bot traffic is going up quickly.
The bots need lots of information to work well. Prince thinks this change will mean we need new computer tools. These tools would help AI bots work better and be safer. For example, when you ask an AI bot to plan a trip, it might need temporary computer space just for that task.
Prince said that during COVID-19, more people used the internet and some parts got very busy. The growth of AI bot traffic will happen more slowly than COVID-19 growth, but it will keep going up and up with no end in sight.
Cloudflare helps websites work better and stay safe from problems. The company can see how the internet is changing because it works with many websites. Prince believes AI will change how we all use the internet, just like when we started using phones to go online.