Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has appeared on The Verge's Decoder podcast to discuss how artificial intelligence is transforming the internet, with the company playing a central role in managing the impact. Cloudflare discovered in June that bot traffic now accounts for more than half of all internet traffic, a figure that continues to rise as AI companies increasingly scrape the web and deploy autonomous agents. The company positions itself as a mediator between websites and these AI tools, enabling website owners to block, permit, or monetise access to artificial intelligence systems.

The discussion also covers significant upheaval within Cloudflare itself, where the company laid off over 1,000 employees—representing 20 per cent of its workforce—earlier in 2026. CEO Prince subsequently published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining how the company selected which employees to replace with AI systems. The podcast explores the broader implications of bot proliferation on the web, potential control mechanisms, and emerging payment schemes that may govern access to website data and resources by artificial intelligence agents.