Cloudflare announced it has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace designed to connect content creators and publishers with AI developers seeking high-quality material for training and inference, as the company pushes deeper into tools that help monetize web content in the AI era.
The deal brings Human Native’s team and technology into Cloudflare’s broader effort to build what it describes as an AI-driven Internet economy—one where original content can be structured into “AI-ready” data, surfaced to potential buyers, and priced through transparent channels. Cloudflare did not disclose financial terms.
Cloudflare framed the acquisition as a response to a growing tension facing creators and publishers: AI systems increasingly depend on access to trustworthy, high-quality content, while content owners are weighing whether to block automated scraping entirely, optimize content for AI discovery, or offer licensed access at a price that reflects the value of the work. Cloudflare said it aims to support all three paths by giving publishers and creators more control over how bots and AI systems interact with their sites, while also building mechanisms that enable paid access.
Human Native, founded in 2024, positioned itself around creating a more equitable relationship between rights holders and AI companies by enabling the discovery and licensing of content for AI use. Cloudflare said the Human Native team includes veterans from organizations such as DeepMind, Google, Figma, and Bloomberg, and that those capabilities will help accelerate Cloudflare’s product roadmap for creator monetization and AI content access.
Cloudflare also highlighted its existing initiatives to manage bot access and content usage, including its Pay Per Crawl solution referenced in the release. The company said the acquisition will help it expand the tooling needed to prepare and package content so AI developers can find, access, and purchase reliable datasets, while giving creators the ability to price and monetize their work more effectively.
The announcement underscores a broader industry shift toward formalized licensing and marketplace-style access to data for AI development, as content owners, AI labs, and platform providers seek models that balance open web access with compensation, attribution, and control for creators. Cloudflare said it plans to integrate Human Native’s products and technology into its existing offerings over time, with timing and availability subject to development and integration progress.
Cloudflare, which operates a large global network for security and performance services, said it serves millions of organizations and blocks billions of online threats each day. The company positioned the acquisition as part of its effort to preserve the long-term health of the open Internet by pairing content controls with a workable economic model for AI-era distribution and monetization.
KEY QUOTES:
“Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI. Last year we gave publishers and creators the tools to control which bots can access their content, but the real goal has always been to help create a new economic model that actually works for the next phase of the Internet. The Human Native team will help us accelerate the next phase, where we build the tools that allow content to be discovered, priced, and purchased through transparent channels. This acquisition is about building the tools needed to protect the longevity of the open Internet.”
Matthew Prince, Co-founder & CEO, Cloudflare
“We started Human Native with the goal of getting Generative AI out of its Napster era. We believe that creators should have control, compensation and credit when their work is used to power AI products, ensuring equitable compensation for rights holders while enabling responsible AI development.”
Dr. James Smith, Co-founder & CEO, Human Native
“High quality data is the key that unlocks real differentiation in AI. James and Jack Galilee have built the infrastructure that enables AI teams to discover and access valuable data across the internet, while allowing data owners to surface, price, and monetize it seamlessly. We’re incredibly excited to see them continue this mission with Cloudflare.”
Ziv Reichert, Partner, LocalGlobe
“At Mercuri, we invest at the intersection of media and AI, and Human Native has embodied this thesis from the outset. When we first invested two years ago, we believed there was a clear need to reward creators fairly for their data and to enable AI to progress with high-quality, ethically sourced data. Our conviction around these principles have only grown stronger in today’s market. We are now excited to see how the Human Native team continues on this mission in partnership with Cloudflare.”
Alan Hudson, Founding General Partner, Mercuri
