“AI language models hit publishers”

NEW DELHI: The increasing use of artificial intelligence language models for information search and proxy commerce has put the existing online business model under pressure, as these companies crush publishers, content creators and small businesses, according to Matthew Prince, CEO of internet infrastructure company Cloudflare. Explaining the problem, he said that over the past decade, individuals and creators — including researchers and small businesses — have sold subscriptions or run ads to compensate for their work. But now AI models are collecting and regurgitating information, removing the direct interaction between creators and users. “Google was a great sponsor, but things have changed now. “Over the past 10 years, for every two pages Google has taken down on the Internet, they have brought back one human visitor.

Today, for every 30 pages, they only send one page. Getting traffic from Google search has become 15 times more difficult. Microsoft’s performance is even worse – it sends 70 to one. If we look at pure AI companies, OpenAI takes 37,000 pages of internet for every visitor they send back. In Anthropic’s case, it’s half a million pages.” Cloudflare handles approximately 20% of internet traffic and works with all major model providers. “Human eyeball movement, the current currency of the Internet, is going away. It will never come back in the same way. We’re getting our answers more from AI than from original sources. So we have to figure out a new way to compensate creators,” he said. Prince said the world needs to discover a new business model for the Internet and develop a new rewards system that goes beyond traffic.