Cloudflare acquires Human Native to build fair, creator-led AI data marketplace

The acquisition strengthens Cloudflare’s push to reshape the AI-driven internet economy by enabling creators and publishers to control, price and monetise their content while giving AI developers transparent access to high-quality, ethically sourced data.

Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace that connects content creators with AI developers, as the connectivity cloud company sharpens its focus on building a sustainable and transparent AI-driven internet economy.

The deal is aimed at simplifying how AI developers discover and access high-quality content while enabling creators and publishers to surface, price and monetise their data in a fair and controlled manner. Cloudflare said the Human Native team’s expertise will help accelerate its efforts to turn existing online content into indexable, valuable data that can be responsibly used by AI companies.

Enabling fair access to high-quality AI training data

As demand for training and inference data grows, content owners face difficult choices around whether to block AI access, optimise content for AI systems, or license their work for a fair price. Cloudflare said it is committed to supporting all three approaches by giving creators greater control over how their content is used.

Human Native’s technology will play a key role in building tools that allow AI developers to find, access and purchase reliable, high-quality data through transparent channels, while ensuring creators retain ownership and agency over their work.

“Content creators deserve full control over their work, whether they want to write for humans or optimize for AI,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare. “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.”

Aligning creator rights with responsible AI growth

Founded in 2024 and backed by UK-based investors LocalGlobe and Mercuri, Human Native was created to address what it describes as the “Napster era” of generative AI, where content is often used without clear permission or compensation. The team includes veterans from organisations such as DeepMind, Google, Figma and Bloomberg.

“We believe that creators should have control, compensation and credit when their work is used to power AI products,” said Dr James Smith, co-founder & CEO of Human Native, adding that the company’s mission closely aligns with Cloudflare’s vision.

Investors said the acquisition reflects a growing industry recognition that high-quality, ethically sourced data is critical to the future of AI. With Human Native, Cloudflare aims to position itself at the centre of a new economic model that balances innovation in AI with fair value for creators, while reinforcing the long-term health of the open internet.