Cloudflare’s move to block AI bots by default could reshape how content is protected online—raising new questions about copyright, scraping, and the future of AI training data.

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal welcomes Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer of Cloudflare, for a conversation that couldn’t be more timely.

On July 1st, Cloudflare announced a game-changing move: any new domain hosted on its massive network will automatically block AI bots from scraping content. That’s a major escalation in the growing fight over who gets to access and use data on the internet—and how.

Cloudflare is far from a minor player. It routes 20% of global internet traffic, and its decision to restrict bot access by default could redraw the boundaries of the AI economy. As generative AI companies train their models on vast amounts of publicly available content—often without consent—this kind of infrastructural pushback may mark a turning point.

Pete and Stephanie dive deep into:

🔹 How Cloudflare identifies and blocks AI bots in real time

🔹 Why this decision matters more than individual publishers adding "robots.txt"

🔹 What enforcement looks like when AI companies try to sneak around restrictions

🔹 The potential ripple effect across the rest of the internet

🔹 Whether we’re heading toward an AI content economy—and what that might look like

It’s a conversation that raises urgent questions about digital rights, platform responsibility, and the blurry future of content in the AI era.

Whether you're a journalist, technologist, or just someone who cares about the future of the web, this episode is essential listening.

🎙 Guest: Stephanie Cohen | https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieecohen 

Chief Strategy Officer, Cloudflare | https://www.cloudflare.com/ 

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This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

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