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Cloudflare unveils AI-crawl controls, monetization tools

Cloudflare announced new classifications, analytics, and commercial partnerships to support an “agentic Internet” where automated agents and AI bots access web content under clearer rules. The company will test and finalize default settings over the next two months and plans to set defaults on September 15, 2026 that allow search but block training and agent use on pages with ads for new customers/sites (and for existing free customers who do not change settings). Cloudflare introduced an Attribution Business Insights dashboard, promoted Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as a new discipline, and is evolving Pay Per Crawl into Pay Per Use to compensate publishers when their content creates value. It named partners including Ceramic.ai, You.com, beehiiv, Condé Nast and Patreon, and described prior initiatives such as AI Crawl Control and Web Bot Auth. Cloudflare says the changes aim to improve discoverability, reduce redundant crawling, and enable fairer monetization for creators.

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StatSocial Launches Digital Twins AI Audience Tool

StatSocial launched Digital Twins, an AI-driven product that simulates audience research by creating anonymized, behaviorally informed digital profiles. Built on StatSocial’s behavioral graph of hundreds of millions of consumers, the tool lets brands, agencies and publishers build segments, test creative and messaging, and conduct scaled conversations without recruiting traditional panels. Shepherd, an audience strategy consultancy and early tester, matched publisher first‑party subscriber data with StatSocial’s graph to validate insights and refine product positioning and pricing. Shepherd reports strong alignment between Digital Twins' simulated responses and historical research and first‑party data, using the tool as a faster, lower-cost way to pressure-test assumptions before committing to traditional recruitment and deeper qualitative studies.