Post Content“With the rise of generative AI, and its just insatiable need for data, we’re seeing a rise where we suspect that, in 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic that’s online,” said Matthew Prince. (Image: X/ Ty Carver)
The balance of activity on the internet could soon shift significantly. Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare, said traffic generated by AI-powered bots may overtake human activity online within the next few years.
Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin, Prince pointed to the rapid rise of generative AI as the key driver of this change. He said that as AI tools become more widespread, bots are increasingly taking over tasks once performed by humans.
Bots browse far more than humans
Prince said bots behave very differently from people when using the internet. Instead of visiting a handful of websites, AI systems can scan thousands in seconds to deliver answers.
“If a human were doing a task, let’s say you were shopping for a digital camera, and you might go to five websites. Your agent or the bot that’s doing that will often go to 1,000 times the number of sites that an actual human would visit,” Prince said.
“So it might go to 5,000 sites. And that’s real traffic, and that’s real load, which everyone is having to deal with and take into account.”
Before the rise of generative AI, bot traffic accounted for only about 20 per cent of internet traffic, with most of it coming from trusted sources such as search engine crawlers. Other bots were largely linked to scams or malicious activity.
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“With the rise of generative AI, and its just insatiable need for data, we’re seeing a rise where we suspect that, in 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic that’s online,” Prince said.
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New infrastructure for an AI-driven web
This shift is expected to push companies to rethink how the internet is built and managed. Prince said new systems, such as temporary “sandboxes” for AI agents, may become essential. These environments could be created instantly to handle specific tasks and then shut down once the work is done.
“What we’re trying to think about is, how do we actually build that underlying infrastructure where you can, as easily as you open a new tab in your browser, you can actually spin up new code, which can then run and service the agents that are out there,” he said.
He added that in the near future, millions of such sandboxes could be created every second.
Rising demand puts pressure on networks
The growth in bot activity will also require more physical infrastructure, including data centres and servers. Prince compared the trend to the surge in internet use during the pandemic, when heavy streaming demand from platforms like YouTube and Netflix pushed networks to the brink.
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“This [growth] is more gradual, but unlike COVID, where it spiked over two weeks and then it kind of plateaued at the new high, we’re seeing internet traffic grow and grow and grow, and we don’t see anything that’s going to slow it down or stop it,” Prince added.
A major shift in how people use the internet
For companies like Cloudflare, which provide services to keep websites fast, secure, and accessible, the trend presents both challenges and opportunities. The firm already offers tools to manage traffic loads and block unwanted bot activity.
Prince believes the bigger picture is a fundamental change in how people interact with the internet.
“I think the thing that people don’t appreciate about AI is it’s a platform shift,” he said. “AI is another platform shift … the way that you’re going to consume information is completely different.”
