Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince: AI agents could reshape the internet’s business model

A Cloudflare representative predicted that, if current trends continue, automated traffic—including agent traffic—could be 1,000 times human traffic in five years. He noted that internet traffic doubled during COVID and that infrastructure nearly collapsed. In his example, a ChatGPT agent might inspect menus from 1,000 restaurants even though the user will choose only one, consuming resources across many sites.

In his view, the internet will need a new business model. One possible option is micropayments: an agent might pay one ten-thousandth of a cent to access a resource. The price could fall or become zero if the user agrees to reveal what the agent is looking for; in some cases, a site might instead pay for a visit. He also suggested that advertisers could target agents directly by matching their requests with relevant offers.

The speaker said Cloudflare is spending considerable time on the question and that the internet’s future business model will need to be worked out within the next five years, probably before the end of the decade. This is his forecast and hypothesis, not a claim that a micropayment system is already operating.