According to Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, artificial intelligence (AI) bots will surpass human traffic on the web by 2027. Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin, Prince highlighted how rapidly growing AI technologies are driving an increase in bot activity.

Prince explained that while only about 20% of internet traffic was from bots before the rise of generative AI, this figure is set to dramatically shift. He noted that a task performed by a human might involve visiting five websites, whereas a bot could visit thousands, creating significant new challenges for online infrastructure.

“With the rise of generative AI and its insatiable need for data, we’re seeing a rise where we suspect that in 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic,” said Prince. He also highlighted the need for new technologies to manage this influx, such as ‘sandboxes’—environments for bots that can be quickly created and destroyed.

Prince envisions a future where millions of these sandboxes are activated every second, requiring substantial physical infrastructure like data centers and servers. This ongoing growth could strain internet capacity, much like the rapid increase in traffic during the pandemic period.

Moving forward, Cloudflare’s role as a key player in web security will be crucial for managing this new landscape. Prince noted that AI represents another platform shift, fundamentally changing how information is consumed online, akin to previous shifts from desktop computing to mobile devices.