Opening Keynote Presentation - The Convergence Moment

The Convergence Moment - Keri Gilder

Over the past few months, the internet passed a milestone that most people barely noticed but is a moment that will fundamentally reshape digital infrastructure. 

For the first time in internet history, machine-generated traffic has overtaken human-generated traffic. Think about that for a moment. For decades, networks have been built around people: billions of individuals browsing websites, streaming content, using applications, and communicating online from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep.

But in June this year, Cloudflare Radar reported that approximately 57.5% of HTTP requests were generated by bots and AI agents, compared with 42.5% generated by humans. The crossover was expected to happen much later, but the rapid rise of AI agents accelerated the shift by around 18 months.

This is more than a statistical milestone. It marks the beginning of a transition from a human-centric internet to a machine-centric one. As AI agents increasingly interact with applications, services, networks and even other AI agents on our behalf, the assumptions underpinning network architecture start to change.

The question is no longer simply whether networks have enough capacity for AI. The bigger challenge is how networks evolve to support a future in which machines are the primary generators of traffic.

In her session, Keri will explore what this means for network providers and the key shifts required to prepare for the AI era:

• Building networks optimised for AI and agent-to-agent traffic
• Delivering programmable and increasingly autonomous network platforms
• Strengthening trust, security, and governance for AI ecosystems
• Scaling infrastructure ahead of demand to support the next wave of AI-driven growth