The Cloudflare CEO, very hard with AI on Google: “The web business model will not survive without changes”
The inclusion of In the Google search engine It is radically changing the “classical” form of operating on the Internet, and is a challenge for companies and creators who have lived for years from the ten blue links model. The risk that, without reward, the creators stop producing original content, is more real than ever, and this was explained by the CEO and co -founder of Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, During your participation in a forum in the United States.
There he shared a forceful vision of the transforming role that artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the Internet, not only from the technological point of view, but also economic.
Strategic motor operating tool
Prince explained that AI is already an essential part of Cloudflare's internal operations, where it is used to improve the efficiency of customer service agents and predict behaviors such as late payments or potential service updates. Although the executive said the company “It has always been, in a way, an AI company”he acknowledged that recent advances have marked a before and after: “Our systems began to identify cybersecurity threats that no human had detected before, and now this happens daily.”
The end of the search -based model
However, the most disruptive of his speech was his diagnosis about the business model that he has held to the Internet during the last 15 years: The search. “Search has been the engine that promoted everything. But that is changing,” said Prince.
As explained by the CEO, a decade ago Google sent a visitor to the websites for every two pages that traced. Today, that figure has fallen to one for every six. The reason? According to Prince, 75% of searches are already resolved without the user left Google. And in the case of generative AI models, the situation is even more extreme: OpenAi offers a 250 to 1 ratio, and Anthropic from 6000 to 1.
«IA will fundamentally change the web business model. The web business model during the last fifteen years has been the search. In one way or another, the search promotes everything that happens online. And if you look ten years ago, if you did a search on Google, you got a list of Ten blue links. And we have data on how Google processed those ten blue links. And the answer was that for every two pages of a website that Google traced, a visitor sent you, right? Then, tracers two pages, you get a visitor. That was the exchange.
Throughout that period of ten years some things have changed in Google. One thing that has not changed is the tracking rate (Crawl Rate). They are still tracking at the same exact pace that they did in that period of time. But Now six traced pages are needed to get a visitor.
What has changed? The answer is that today, 75 % of the searches made on Google are answered without you having to leave Google, they respond on that same page. So if you want to ask, “When did David Rubenstein Carlyle founded?” About ten years ago I would take you to a Wikipedia page or another place. Today, the answer appears directly on the page and you don't have to go anywhere else.
The consequence of that is that the creators of original content that are generating that content – if they obtained value through selling subscriptions or putting ads, or simply the ego of knowing that someone is reading what they write – that has disappeared, right? That has collapsed. And that's “good.” So, ten years ago, the Google ratio was 2 to 1. today is 6 to 1. Do you know what you think is for OpenAi? 250 to 1. And for Anthropic? 6000 to 1 ″.
“Today, the answer appears directly on the page and you don't have to go anywhere else.”
Neither traffic, nor income from ads
The cloudflare CEO continued to affect the impact of this change on the business models of millions of companies and online professionals: “This means that content creators They no longer receive traffic, admission to advertisements, not even recognition »he warned.
«And that's why the web business model cannot survive unless there is any changebecause more and more the answers to the questions you ask are not going to take you to the original source, it will be some derivation of that source. And if content creators cannot obtain value of what they do, then they will not continue to create original content ».
This Prince's speech has a lot to do with the studies that we have been knowing in recent days about the impact of Ai overViews, The automated Google responses, in organic traffic. With Spain leading the adoption of this type of “zero response” content in Europe, this reality affects us fully.
And although he acknowledged that some companies such as Openai are aware of this imbalance, he also pointed out that they cannot be “The only dumb” They pay for the content: «I think that the smartest companies that exist, such as Sam Altman in Openai and others, understand that. But at the same time, he can't be the “fool.” Cannot be the only one paying for content When everyone else gets it for free. So something has to change in that business model ».
Overvalued?
Despite this critical analysis, Prince does not rule out the enormous potential of artificial intelligence. “Probably 99% of the money that is being invested today is burning. But that remaining 1% will be incredibly valuable. The problem is that we still don't know which part is that. So maybe we all have to burn, you know, $ 100 to find that dollar that does matter. ”He concluded.
How do you think artificial intelligence will transform your business? Do you think there is too much hype around that issue? What do you think will be the impact of its inclusion on Google on business?
Image: Flux Schnell
