Following a 2.26% decline at Thursday's close, Cloudflare (NET.US) saw a pre-market rebound of over 1% on Friday as investors assessed the cybersecurity firm's acquisition of the artificial intelligence (AI) data platform Human Native. Established in 2024, the UK-based AI data platform Human Native has garnered support from some of London's top venture capitalists. The company has collaborated with enterprises in the technology and media sectors, including DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google (GOOGL.US), and Figma.

In a statement, Cloudflare indicated that this transaction will help the company further expand into the service domain facilitating transactions between AI developers and content creators. Cloudflare's Co-founder and CEO, Matthew Prince, stated, "Content creators should have complete control over their work, whether it's created for humans or optimized for AI. Last year, we provided publishers and creators with tools to control which bots can access their content, but the ultimate goal has always been to help build a new economic model truly suited for the next phase of the internet. The Human Native team will help us accelerate the next stage of development: building tools that enable content to be discovered, priced, and purchased through transparent channels. This acquisition aims to construct the tools necessary to protect the long-term development of the open internet."

In the summer of 2025, Cloudflare launched its "AI Crawler Controls" product, which offers customers a way to restrict or commercialize "AI crawlers" on their websites. "AI crawlers" is a common term for a category of bot programs that harvest data from the internet to train large language models. Cloudflare's cybersecurity product portfolio has driven significant benefits for the company's stock during the AI boom, with its share price accumulating a gain of over 60% in the past year.

James Smith, Co-founder and CEO of Human Native, commented, "We founded Human Native with the goal of moving generative AI beyond its 'piracy' era. We believe that when creators' works are used to power AI products, they should have control, receive payment, and be credited, thereby ensuring rightful compensation for rights holders while promoting responsible AI development." "Our discussions with Cloudflare, from Matthew to the entire team, have shown a high alignment in our values; we share the same mission and, together, have the opportunity to deliver an internet-scale solution."

It is worth noting that the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, and Cloudflare did not specify when the acquisition is expected to be completed.