Cloudflare buys AI data marketplace Human Native

cloud flare AI buys the data market human nativeThe company said Thursday it is expanding its efforts to improve transactions between AI developers and content creators.

“Content creators deserve complete control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a statement announcing the news.

internet infrastructure The company said the acquisition will help it create tools for AI developers to “find, access and purchase trusted, high-quality data through fair and transparent channels.”

The press release did not specify the value of the deal, and a Cloudflare spokesperson declined to disclose further details.

Prince said the acquisition will help Cloudflare accelerate development of a new system under which AI developers will pay creators for any content they use to train their models.

Human Native, a UK startup, manages these operations.

“This acquisition is about building the tools needed to preserve the longevity of the open internet,” Prince said in the statement.

In August, Prince told CNBC’s “Mad Money” that reshaping how content monetizes online has become a new mission for the company.

“I think this will be Cloudflare’s fourth act as we help ensure that content creators can get paid and that the business model of the web continues to exist and thrive,” he told Cramer.

Last summer, Cloudflare launched its AI Crawl Control product, which offers customers a way to throttle and/or monetize “AI crawlers,” a nickname for bots that collect data across the web to train large language models on their sites.

Cloudflare’s cybersecurity products have allowed the stock to benefit from AI trading, with shares rising more than 60% in the past year.