ChatGPT and Google: The Tech Billionaire Taking On AI Companies (Matthew Prince)
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Artificial Intelligence is fundamentally changing the internet. But Matthew Prince, CEO of cybersecurity giant Cloudflare, thinks there is a way to ensure content creators and publishers earn enough to operate — even as their work feeds AI.
Cloudflare has put up digital firewalls around its clients’ sites, which blocks the bots that copy content to train large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. It is then up to its customers to choose whether to allow those so-called AI “crawlers” to access their sites.
Matthew spoke to Amol ahead of his appearance at the Thomson Reuters Foundation's Trust Conference, about how he hopes his decision will lead to a better deal for publishers as ‘search engines’ become ‘answer engines’ in the era of AI overviews and chatbots.
They also talk about the debate between artists like Sir Elton John and the UK government over plans to exempt technology firms from copyright laws.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has designated Google with strategic market status in general search, which includes AI Overview and AI Mode. But Google says “many of the ideas for interventions that have been raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches at a time of profound AI-based innovation.” The company also disputes Matthew’s claim that traffic to websites has fallen since the launch of AI Overview.
(00:03:52) How the internet is changing
(00:08:05) How AI is reducing web traffic
(00:11:34) Why it's important to compensate content creators
(00:18:50) AI is a platform change
(00:21:38) How AI could improve content creation
(00:26:29) The story behind Cloudflare
(00:31:42) Why he decided to block AI “crawler” bots
(00:42:33) AI and copyright laws in the UK
(00:45:19) Google’s market power
(00:51:37) Advice for becoming a tech entrepreneur
(00:54:01) Amol’s reflections
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* WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Anna Budd. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Ricardo McCarthy and Dafydd Evans. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello, it's Amol here, and welcome. |
| 0:08.5 | A very warm welcome to all of our new listeners on BBC Sounds, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you are listening. |
| 0:16.0 | We've had, well, there are lots of you, new listeners that is, as well as old listeners, |
| 0:20.0 | and we like you both equally. |
| 0:21.3 | It is fantastic that we have such a growing community because here on the podcast we are trying to do something that not many other people are really. |
| 0:30.1 | We are on the hunt for radical ideas to help you win the future. |
| 0:34.8 | And we are trying to explore the deep global trends that are changing our world |
| 0:39.4 | and just trying to make sense, really, of the zeitgeist in this crazy bewildering era of human history. |
| 0:45.9 | Now, bear with me because my guest this week is a man you may not have heard of, |
| 0:50.8 | but who is undoubtedly one of the most powerful men in the world today. It's one of the features |
| 0:56.3 | of the tech revolutions that I've been reporting on for the best part of the last decade, |
| 1:00.7 | that there are these figures that occasionally pop up who most people have never heard of, |
| 1:04.7 | who aren't household names, but who wield extraordinary influence and who are extraordinarily |
| 1:09.5 | wealthy in their own right. |
| 1:11.7 | Matthew Prince is one such person. He is the CEO of a cyber security giant called Cloudflare. |
| 1:19.4 | And amazingly, Cloudflare is a kind of vital utility or infrastructure underneath around |
| 1:25.7 | about a quarter of the entire internet. Earlier this year, |
| 1:29.9 | Cloudflare put up digital firewalls and that blocks the bots, those automated bits of |
| 1:35.7 | software that copy content to train large language models like OpenAIs chat GPT or Google's Gemini |
| 1:41.9 | from having access to the people they serve. In other words, |
| 1:45.6 | about the quarter of the internet. And if you just think about the implications of that, it is huge. |
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