Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace that connects creators and developers. The acquisition should make it easier for AI companies to find and purchase valuable content, while content creators retain control over their work and receive fair compensation.
With this acquisition, Cloudflare aims to build a new economic model for the AI era. Last year, Cloudflare introduced tools that allow publishers to determine which bots have access to their content. Now, the company is taking it a step further with Human Native, founded in 2024 and backed by British venture capitalists LocalGlobe and Mercuri.
“Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI,” says Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince. According to him, the ambition is to create a new economic model that actually works for the next phase of the internet. The acquisition focuses on building tools that enable content to be discovered, priced, and purchased through transparent channels.
Three strategic options for creators
The success of the AI industry depends heavily on access to high-quality content for training and inference. This presents content owners with a critical decision. They can block their content entirely, optimize it specifically for AI, or offer it at a fair price that reflects its value to AI users and society. Cloudflare wants to support creators in all three of these options.
Human Native is helping Cloudflare build tools to prepare content so that AI developers can find, use, and purchase reliable, high-quality data. The team brings expertise from companies such as DeepMind, Google, Figma, and Bloomberg. That experience should help Cloudflare support creators in structuring their content for fair and streamlined AI consumption.
“We started Human Native with the goal of getting Generative AI out of its Napster era,” says Dr. James Smith, co-founder and CEO of Human Native. He believes that creators deserve control, compensation, and recognition when their work is used for AI products. This should ensure fair compensation for rights holders while enabling responsible AI development.
According to Smith, discussions with Cloudflare have shown that both parties are fully aligned in their values and mission. Together, they now have the opportunity to deliver solutions on an internet scale.