Human Native alternatives: licensed AI data after the Cloudflare acquisition.

What happened to Human Native AI?

Cloudflare announced in January 2026 that it had acquired Human Native, which it describes as a UK-based AI data marketplace that turns multimedia content into searchable, licensable data. Human Native was founded in 2024 and backed by LocalGlobe and Mercuri. Its founders said the goal was to give creators "control, compensation and credit" when their work is used to build AI. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cloudflare says the deal will make it easier for AI developers to find and access the content they need, and help creators and publishers decide how their content reaches AI companies that are willing to pay. Its CEO, Matthew Prince, said the team will help build tools that let content be discovered, priced and purchased through transparent channels. Human Native's website now carries a notice that it is joining Cloudflare. Neither company has said in public whether the original marketplace continues in its earlier form.

We are Indri Labs, a sourcing service and one of the alternatives on this page, so read it knowing that. What we say about Human Native and Cloudflare comes from their own announcements, documentation and press coverage, listed under sources, as of October 2026.

What do Cloudflare and Human Native offer now?

Cloudflare frames the acquisition as part of a wider effort to let content owners choose how AI systems use their work. According to Cloudflare, owners can block access, optimise content for AI systems, or offer it for purchase, and it plans tools for each. The products it points to are:

• AI Crawl Control, available on all Cloudflare plans, which shows which AI services crawl a site, lets the owner allow or block each crawler and tracks which crawlers follow robots.txt.
• Pay per crawl, a beta feature of AI Crawl Control. The site owner sets a price; a crawler that sends payment intent gets the page, and one that does not gets an HTTP 402 Payment Required response with the price. Cloudflare acts as merchant of record.
• AI Index, a model Cloudflare describes in which participating sites publish structured updates when their content changes and developers subscribe to them.

These tools centre on content that lives on websites served through Cloudflare. That makes them a natural fit for publishers and creators. AI labs whose data needs sit outside the public web will usually need another route.

How does Human Native (Cloudflare) compare with Indri Labs?

The two solve different halves of the same problem. Cloudflare gives content owners control over AI access to what they publish. Indri Labs works for the AI lab, going out to get data that has never been published or offered for sale. Neither publishes a standard price list for licensed training data, so prices are left out.

What are the alternatives to Human Native for AI labs?

Which alternative fits depends on whether the data you need already exists in a catalog.

• Licensing platforms. Protege describes itself as a two-sided data platform that signs data holders and licenses their data to model builders, with a focus on areas such as healthcare and media.
• Dataset marketplaces. Defined.ai sells ready-to-use training datasets, and Datarade lists many commercial data providers in one place.
• Sourcing services. Indri Labs takes a description of the data you need, finds the companies that hold it, licenses it and delivers one dataset.

For a wider view, see our comparison of AI training data providers.

How does Indri Labs work?

Indri Labs is a service, not a marketplace or catalog. You describe the need: modality, volume, coverage across regions, languages and edge cases, format, rights and deadline. We scope it for free and send a one-page brief that names and prices every source, includes a sample from each, gives the total data cost and shows our fee on its own line. You can walk away owing nothing.

If you approve, you sign one contract and pay one invoice, with us. We negotiate a license with every seller, usually companies that have never sold their data, and record what doesn't exist yet, such as first-person video on smart glasses and head cameras filmed to spec. You receive one merged dataset with duplicates and personal data removed, checked against your spec, with the source and license for every record, in your format.

We source first-person video, operational logs (telemetry, transactions, system records), calls and meetings as audio with transcripts, and documents. Sensor and robotics data and clinical records are coming soon. If you hold data and want to license it to AI labs, see how we work with data owners.

When is Human Native (Cloudflare) the better choice?

• You publish content on the web and want to see, allow, block or charge AI crawlers: AI Crawl Control and pay per crawl are built for that.
• Your site already runs on Cloudflare and you want AI access controls in the same place.
• You are an AI developer who wants web content from publishers who have opted in to paid access.

Indri Labs is the better choice when:

• The data you need is held inside companies and not published anywhere
• You need first-person video recorded to your spec
• You want several sources merged into one dataset under one contract
• You need the source and license for every record

If the data you need is not on the web or in a catalog, send us the need. The brief is free and you can walk away owing nothing. How Indri Labs works.