Artificial Intelligence: Calling for democratisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloudflare Chief Executive Officer Matthew Prince has said this technology should not be controlled by five companies, suggesting a more distributed and inclusive approach.

"AI should not be a technology which is controlled by five companies, it should be 500,000 companies and those companies should be spread around the world," said Prince while speaking at the AI Impact Summit here.

Echoing the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to democratise technology, he said AI must be made available to everyone, regardless of geography or economic status, and urged for business models that ensure sustainability and fairness.

He also asked to make sure that "content creators, journalists, academics, researchers are able to be compensated" for the hard work for creating their content rather than just having that content taken regurgitated and spit back through AI systems.

"This is one of the key challenges that we have to think about as we go forward," Prince added.

The Cloudflare CEO also emphasised on the importance of supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly in the global south, as commerce increasingly shifts toward AI-driven platforms.

"We need to make sure that small businesses and especially those in the global south have the tools to survive," Prince said.

Matthew cautioned that AI should not become a 'consolidator" that undermines "relationship that we have with them is personal or based on mere convenience."

Prince also raised the issue of cultural preservation and said AI should recognise unique cultures and unique identities and should not make the mistake of just merely "Americanising" the world.

"Languages should not be homogenised by AI. There is no one universal culture and we can not forget those things that make each region and each part of the world unique," he said adding AI needs to respect and actually emphasise that.

AI should honor the culture of all of those places around the world and honor those things that have made us unique. It should not remove our humanity.

Prince further called for affordability and accessibility, pointing out that advanced AI tools should not remain exclusive to those who can afford expensive subscriptions.

"We don't want to make the mistake of just merely Americanizing the world but instead it should accelerate it and enhance it and finally we need to make sure that the technology is available to all, especially the poorest of those in the global south. This can't be something where you can only get the latest, unbiased, unfiltered, highest technology if you can afford to spend thousands of dollars per month on a subscription," he added.

Prince said there needs to be a business model that allows AI to be available to the broadest set of users and make sure we are not leaving people behind with this incredibly powerful technology.

"That's the framework that I would aim for. One where AI is distributed, not controlled," he said.

He also highlighted Cloudflare's efforts to make AI adaptable and multi-model across regions, citing the rollout of AI for Bharat supporting 22 official languages in India, enabling students to experiment and innovate.

He explained that Cloudflare is working to make AI systems more efficient, passing on cost savings to ensure affordability for all.

Prince concluded by challenging the AI community to strive for five values: inclusivity, accessibility, cultural respect, affordability, and security.

"We can not say this is going to be a technology restricted to literally five companies in one postal code in San Francisco," he said adding "It needs to be available to the world.