Cloudflare IncCEO highlights Cloudflare's role in handling massive internet traffic and potential for micropayment systems, indicating growing demand for its services.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said automated traffic surpassed human traffic online for the first time two months ago, and at current growth rates it could be a thousand times greater within five years, making human traffic a rounding error. Speaking at the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Prince warned that the shift to AI-driven consumption means traditional ad and subscription models will fail because agents do not click on ads. He said Cloudflare, which processes about half a billion internet requests per second, estimates 1% to 10% of that traffic could be suitable for micropayments, requiring a system capable of handling 10 million to 100 million transactions per second—far exceeding Visa’s 18,000 transactions per second. Prince suggested that a combination of micropayments, content marketplaces, and agent-directed advertising will be necessary to compensate content creators in the emerging internet landscape.
Cloudflare IncCEO highlights Cloudflare's role in handling massive internet traffic and potential for micropayment systems, indicating growing demand for its services.
Visa Inc. Class AArticle contrasts Cloudflare's potential micropayment system with Visa's transaction capacity, implying a competitive threat to Visa's payment network.