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Cloudflare (NET) shares remain in the spotlight on July 8 after the company announced a first-of-its-kind research pilot with the artificial intelligence (AI) behemoth OpenAI.
The partnership aims to reshape the internet by leveraging NET’s massive network telemetry data to optimize how AI search engines discover, analyze, and index content in real time.
Backed by explosive demand for agentic AI traffic, Cloudflare stock has rallied roughly 35% since the start of this year.
What We Know About the Cloudflare-OpenAI Partnership
Cloudflare will supply OpenAI with real-time network insights from participating websites.
By tapping into NET’s infrastructure, which handles over 20% of all global internet traffic, OpenAI frontier models will gain instant access to critical signals like traffic quality, content freshness, and webpage updates.
This will shift the paradigm away from sluggish, traditional bot crawling to a highly sophisticated, signal-driven indexing model.
Because OpenAI has already proactively split its search and training crawler to comply with NET’s strict web scraping guidelines, the AI leader is perfectly positioned to integrate this data, allowing ChatGPT to deliver significantly faster, more accurate search responses.
Why OpenAI Collaboration Is Bullish for NET Shares
The OpenAI announcement is largely positive for Cloudflare’s long-term monetization.
Teaming up with the AI company strengthens NET’s role in the artificial intelligence infrastructure stack, increases demand for its data services, and reinforces its moat as the gateway for over 20% of global internet traffic.
As agentic AI workloads increase, Cloudflare will become structurally embedded in OpenAI’s growth, supporting long-term revenue expansion and sentiment-driven multiple rerating.
Note that Barchart currently holds a “100% BUY” rating on NET stock, reinforcing that the technical momentum also continues to signal further upside ahead.
Wall Street Continues to Recommend Owning Cloudflare Stock
Despite Cloudflare’s meteoric run in 2026, Wall Street firms recommend looking beyond valuation concerns and sticking with NET shares through year-end.
According to Barchart, the consensus rating on Cloudflare sits at “Moderate Buy” at the time of writing, with price targets as high as $305 indicating potential upside of nearly 15% over the next 12 months.
