Matthew Prince, cofounder and CEO of Cloudflare, told the Utah AI Summit that the rise of large language models and AI agents represents a platform change that will alter how people consume information and how internet businesses make money. "AI is another platform change," Prince said, adding that the shift could move reward structures away from raw traffic to knowledge delivery.

Prince said that change offers opportunities for niche and local creators, but he also warned of consolidation risks. He said Cloudflare is receiving licensing inquiries from AI companies seeking local news and hyperlocal datasets and described his decision to buy the Park Record to preserve local coverage. He credited a voter-information mailer distributed with the Park Record and local radio partner KPCW for raising local voter turnout from about 22% to 57% in the community he serves.

Prince raised competition and data-access concerns, asserting that "Google sees 5 times more of the Internet than any other AI company" because of privileged crawling and access to paywalled content. He argued unequal access to web data risks entrenching incumbents and proposed regulatory remedies that would separate crawling for search from crawling for AI training.

Prince also criticized what he described as the danger of regulatory capture, saying some firms may push for rules that advantage a few companies rather than promote broader competition. He urged development of tools and partnerships (naming PayPal and Shopify as examples) to help small businesses remain competitive in an AI-driven market. "I think the optimistic thing is... we can build a world where there are lots and lots and lots of players," he said.

The conversation mixed technical, commercial and civic concerns: Prince pressed for transparency and competition, described concrete local journalism work, and warned that policy decisions about data and crawling can shape market structure for years. The fireside closed with Prince urging deliberate policy and market design to preserve opportunity for small businesses and diverse media.