Cloudflare buys Human Native to reshape AI data pay

Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace that connects content creators with AI developers seeking training and inference data.

Cloudflare said the deal expands its content-related products aimed at AI companies and publishers. Human Native operates a marketplace model focused on data access and payment flows between rights holders and AI teams.

The company has increasingly positioned itself in the debate over how AI systems collect and use online content. Publishers and platforms have raised concerns about scraping, bot traffic, and the lack of clear compensation models for content used in model development.

Marketplace focus

Cloudflare described Human Native as a business that connects creators and AI developers. It said the acquisition will influence how AI developers discover and access content, and how creators and publishers present and price their data for AI use.

Cloudflare framed the purchase as part of a wider effort to change the economics of content distribution in an AI-driven internet. It pointed to creator controls and monetisation tools it has released over the last year.

The company said AI developers require high-quality content for model training and inference. It said content owners face choices around whether they block access, shape content for AI consumption, or offer content for purchase.

Cloudflare tools

Cloudflare has rolled out several products and protocols that touch on AI access and payments. It introduced AI Crawl Control, which it positioned as a way for publishers and creators to manage bot access. It also launched Pay Per Crawl, which it linked to monetisation for content access.

The company also cited Content Signals, which it described as a mechanism for expressing preferences around content use. It referenced the x402 protocol as work on machine-to-machine payments.

Cloudflare said the Human Native team will contribute to product development around content preparation for AI discovery. It also highlighted pricing and purchase mechanisms at scale.

Matthew Prince, Co-Founder and CEO, Cloudflare, connected the acquisition to creator control and payment channels.

“Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimise for AI,” said Matthew Prince, Co-Founder and CEO, Cloudflare. “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.”

Human Native background

Human Native was founded in 2024. It has backing from LocalGlobe and Mercuri. Cloudflare said the Human Native team includes people with experience across technology and media, including at DeepMind, Google, Figma, and Bloomberg.

Human Native’s Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. James Smith, said the company set out to change how generative AI products use content, with an emphasis on control and compensation.

“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,” said Dr. James Smith, Co-Founder and CEO, Human Native. “Our discussions with Cloudflare, from Matthew to the entire team, have shown us that our values could not be more aligned, we believe in the same mission and together we will have the opportunity to deliver solutions at Internet scale.

Investors in Human Native framed the business around data discovery and pricing for AI use.

“High quality data is the key that unlocks real differentiation in AI,” said Ziv Reichert. “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 monetise it seamlessly. We're incredibly excited to see them continue this mission with Cloudflare.”

Mercuri, which invests in media and AI, said Human Native aligned with its thesis on creator reward models and data sourcing for AI development.

“At Mercuri, we invest at the intersection of media and AI, and Human Native has embodied this thesis from the outset,” said Alan Hudson. “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.”

Cloudflare said it will use the Human Native team’s experience as it develops tools around AI discovery, pricing and purchasing of content through what it describes as transparent channels.