Humans to become 'rounding error' on the internet, predicts Cloudflare CFO
Cloudflare's chief financial officer, Thomas Seifert, forecasts that human-generated internet traffic will be surpassed by machine-generated traffic 1,000-fold in five years, citing AI-driven growth as the main driver. This trend is expected to lead to increased security threats and a need for greater efficiency.
Key points
- Cloudflare's Thomas Seifert predicts human-generated internet traffic will be 1,000 times less than machine-generated traffic in five years.
- Seifert attributes the growth in machine-made traffic to AI, which is driving a significant increase in non-human traffic.
- Cloudflare's Q2 revenue jumped 36% year-over-year to $696 million, but still lags behind major cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud.
- Seifert warns that the rise of machine-generated traffic will lead to more security threats and a need for greater efficiency.
- Cloudflare's service is positioned as a potential solution to help address the efficiency challenges posed by the growing machine traffic.
Cloudflare's chief financial officer, Thomas Seifert, has made a bold prediction about the future of internet traffic. During the company's Q2 earnings call, Seifert stated that human-generated internet traffic will be surpassed by machine-generated traffic 1,000-fold in five years. This trend is driven by the rapid growth of AI, which is producing an increasingly large amount of non-human traffic.
Seifert's prediction is based on current trends, which have seen machines take over human-generated traffic in just a few months. In May 2026, Cloudflare reported that machine-generated traffic had surpassed human-generated traffic, contrary to the company's earlier predictions. Seifert's new prediction is that the gap between human and machine traffic will continue to grow, with non-human traffic becoming as much as 1,000 times larger than human traffic in five years.
Cloudflare's Q2 revenue jumped 36% year-over-year to $696 million, a significant increase for the company. However, Seifert's comments highlight the challenges that Cloudflare and other companies face in dealing with the growing amount of machine-generated traffic. Seifert warned that the rise of machine-generated traffic will lead to more security threats and a need for greater efficiency.
Cloudflare's service is positioned as a potential solution to help address the efficiency challenges posed by the growing machine traffic. Seifert volunteered Cloudflare's service as a source of efficiency, suggesting that the company's technology can help mitigate the impact of machine-generated traffic on the internet.
Sources
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