Cloudflare rises 5% as AI agent wave led by viral Moltbot boosts security demand

In this articleCloudflare's stock gained 5% Wednesday after the company beat Wall Street's fourth-quarter estimates and issued upbeat guidance as artificial intelligence adoption fuels demand for its networking and security tools.In an earnings call with analysts Tuesday, CEO Matthew Prince said the rise of AI and agentic tools that can carry out tasks on a user's behalf has driven more demand to Cloudflare's networking and security offeringsPrince said the company is seeing a boost from a "fundamental re-platforming" of the internet. "If AI agents are the new users of the internet, Cloudflare is the platform they run on and the network they pass through," he said. "This creates a virtuous flywheel."The global networking and cloud provider reported adjusted earnings of 28 cents per share on $615 million in revenue. That topped the 27 cents per share and $591 million in revenue expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenue jumped 34% from a year ago. Cloudflare also provided strong guidance, calling for revenue in the range of $620 million and $621 million during the first quarter, ahead of the $614 million expected by analysts. For the full year, Cloudflare expects revenue between $2.79 billion to $2.80 billion, versus a $2.74 billion estimate.Last month, the viral rise of Moltbot, an open-source AI personal assistant built on Anthropic's Claude model, lifted shares of Cloudflare as the company's edge infrastructure and security platform proved effective for running the agents.The cybersecurity company then released its own Moltworker platform, especially for securely running the Moltbot.The "continued proliferation of AI agents benefits Cloudflare and its Workers platform as AI agents require low-latency, secure inferencing that often scales up and scales down and is close to the user or 'edge' of the network," wrote analysts at RBC Capital Markets last month.Prince, who also co-founded the company, said Cloudflare finished 2025 with 4.5 million active human developers. Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inboxGet this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.© 2026 Versant Media, LLC.

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