Cloudflare Announces Research Pilot with OpenAI

Key Terms

ai search engines technical

AI search engines are online tools that use artificial intelligence—like machine learning and natural language processing—to understand user questions, find relevant information, and generate answers or ranked results. For investors, they matter because they can change how companies attract customers, monetize traffic, handle user data, and compete on costs and capabilities; think of them as a smarter map or assistant that can reshape who wins and loses in online markets.

frontier search capabilities technical

Frontier search capabilities are state-of-the-art tools and techniques that let software find information faster and more accurately than traditional search, often using technologies like artificial intelligence, semantic understanding, natural language queries, real-time indexing, and multimodal retrieval. For investors, these features matter because they can make a product feel more useful and modern—like replacing a basic map with a smart GPS—affecting user engagement, retention, and potential revenue growth.

frontier models technical

Frontier models are the most powerful and cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems, trained on massive amounts of data to perform complex tasks like generating text, analyzing images, or making predictions. For investors, they matter because they can create significant advantages or risks for companies — like a new industrial machine that radically boosts productivity or a costly, unproven technology that attracts regulatory scrutiny and high ongoing costs — affecting growth prospects, margins, and competitive position.

network-level insights technical

Aggregated patterns and trends derived from data across an entire system of connected entities — such as computers, customers, clinics, or suppliers — that reveal how the whole network is performing, where bottlenecks or risks sit, and how activity flows between nodes. For investors, these insights act like a traffic report for a complex system: they help signal overall health, scalability, adoption trends, concentration risks, or operational weaknesses that can affect future revenue and costs.

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Research pilot combines Cloudflare’s global network signals with OpenAI’s frontier search capabilities

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud company, today announced Cloudflare and OpenAI are launching a first-of-its-kind research pilot to explore how insights from participating websites across Cloudflare’s global network can help AI search engines discover and index relevant content on the open web more effectively. The pilot is specifically focused on improving the accuracy and timeliness of answers. By using Cloudflare’s real-time network insights—such as content freshness, traffic quality, and actual page changes—the project aims to improve AI systems’ indexing and crawling of the web.

"By sharing our sophisticated network signals, we can find a better way to make AI search more efficient and help people get quality answers faster," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.

Cloudflare’s global network, which more than 20% of the web sits behind, gives it a unique vantage point into how content changes and how traffic behaves in real time. OpenAI brings frontier models, a large-scale search and answer system, and real user queries to test. Together, the companies will examine how signal-driven crawling and indexing can improve accuracy and freshness in answers.

"Up-to-date information is important for delivering accurate answers to people using ChatGPT," said Nick Ryder, VP of Research at OpenAI. "Piloting this with Cloudflare will allow us to explore whether network-level insights can help us discover content more efficiently."

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET) is the leading connectivity cloud company. It empowers organizations to make their employees, applications and networks faster and more secure everywhere, while reducing complexity and cost. Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud delivers the most full-featured, unified platform of cloud-native products and developer tools, so any organization can gain the control they need to work, develop, and accelerate their business.

Powered by one of the world’s largest and most interconnected networks, Cloudflare blocks billions of threats online for its customers every day. It is trusted by millions of organizations – from the largest brands to entrepreneurs and small businesses to nonprofits, humanitarian groups, and governments across the globe.

Learn more about Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud at cloudflare.com/connectivity-cloud. Learn more about the latest Internet trends and insights at radar.cloudflare.com.

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Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “explores,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “targets,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative of these words, or other similar terms or expressions that concern Cloudflare’s expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements expressed or implied in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the capabilities and effectiveness of Cloudflare’s global network and real-time network insights and Cloudflare’s other products and technology, the benefits to Cloudflare’s customers from using Cloudflare’s global network and real-time network insights and Cloudflare’s other products and technology, Cloudflare’s partnership with OpenAI and the potential resulting benefits to Cloudflare customers, the potential opportunity for Cloudflare to attract additional customers and to expand sales to existing customers through Cloudflare’s partnership with OpenAI, Cloudflare’s technological development, future operations, growth, initiatives, or strategies, and comments made by Cloudflare’s CEO and others. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to, risks detailed in Cloudflare’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including Cloudflare’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on May 8, 2026, as well as other filings that Cloudflare may make from time to time with the SEC.

The forward-looking statements made in this press release relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. Cloudflare undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. Cloudflare may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in Cloudflare’s forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on Cloudflare’s forward-looking statements.

© 2026 Cloudflare, Inc. All rights reserved. Cloudflare, the Cloudflare logo, and other Cloudflare marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Cloudflare, Inc. in the U.S. and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names referenced herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260708443792/en/

Cloudflare, Inc.
Daniella Vallurupalli
Vice President, Head of Global Communications
press@cloudflare.com

Source: Cloudflare, Inc.