From Person to Aesthetic: The Digital Cannibalization of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy
March 22, 2026
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warns that rapid growth in AI-driven bots could result in bot traffic surpassing human internet usage by 2027.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has warned that AI-driven bot traffic could surpass human internet usage by 2027, highlighting a major shift in how the web operates.
Speaking at the SXSW conference, Prince explained that the rise of generative AI is significantly increasing web traffic, as AI bots visit far more websites than humans to generate responses. For example, while a user might browse a handful of sites, AI agents could scan thousands to complete the same task.
He noted that prior to the generative AI boom, bots accounted for roughly 20% of internet traffic, largely driven by search engine crawlers like Google. However, the rapid expansion of AI systems is accelerating this trend at an unprecedented pace.
Prince emphasized that this shift will require new infrastructure solutions, including scalable environments or “sandboxes” that can handle millions of AI-driven processes simultaneously. He added that increasing demand will also put pressure on data centers and global internet infrastructure.
The trend signals a broader platform shift in how users interact with the internet, with AI agents increasingly acting as intermediaries between users and online content.
