Cloudflare Launches Identity-Aware AI Gateway to Give Enterprises Full Visibility into AI Usage

Cloudflare has introduced Identity-Aware AI Gateway, a new solution designed to provide enterprises with real-time visibility into how employees and AI agents use artificial intelligence across the organization. Alongside the launch, Cloudflare also unveiled User Insights, a feature that helps IT and security teams monitor AI activity, control spending, and detect unusual behavior without disrupting employee productivity.

The announcement strengthens Cloudflare's enterprise AI portfolio by enabling organizations to identify who is using AI, what data is being shared, and how much AI usage is costing—all through a secure, centralized platform.

Cloudflare Addresses Growing AI Security and Cost Challenges

As enterprise AI adoption accelerates, organizations are facing two major challenges: rapidly increasing AI expenses and limited visibility into employee interactions with AI models.

Cloudflare said traditional AI management tools can limit overall spending but often fail to identify which users or automated systems generated costs or whether sensitive business information has been shared with external AI providers.

Identity-Aware AI Gateway addresses these challenges by linking every AI request to a verified employee or AI agent while providing organizations with detailed insights into AI usage and associated costs.

AI Gateway and User Insights Deliver Enterprise AI Governance

Cloudflare's new capabilities provide organizations with greater control over AI deployments through several key features.

Verified AI Identity Tracking

By integrating Cloudflare Access with AI Gateway, every AI request is tied to an authenticated employee or automated system, giving IT teams complete visibility into AI usage across the organization.

Detect Unusual AI Activity

The new User Insights feature builds behavioral baselines for each employee and AI agent, automatically alerting administrators when spending or AI activity deviates significantly from normal patterns.

"When security is clunky, it becomes a speed bump that slows down innovation. Right now, companies are wary of surprise AI bills or accidental data leaks, so their instinct is to lock down access and restrict what teams can build. Connecting our access controls directly to AI Gateway flips that dynamic. Teams get the freedom to work with any AI model they choose. IT gets real-time visibility, guardrails, and the budget controls they actually need."

Dane Knecht, Chief Technology Officer at Cloudflare

Optimize AI Spending

User Insights also helps organizations identify opportunities to reduce AI costs by highlighting situations where employees are using expensive AI models for tasks that could be completed using lower-cost alternatives.

Identity-Based AI Access Controls

Organizations can integrate AI Gateway with existing Identity Providers (IdPs) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) infrastructure, replacing shared API keys with authenticated user identities while enforcing existing security policies.

Centralized AI Traffic Management

Cloudflare AI Gateway provides a single control point for all enterprise AI traffic, allowing organizations to:

• Monitor AI activity across all AI providers
• Reduce costs through request caching
• Apply rate limits to prevent excessive AI usage
• Automatically remove sensitive information before requests reach external AI services

"Shared API keys make it almost impossible to tell who is using an AI service or apply the access rules we already have for employees. Putting Cloudflare Access in front of AI Gateway gives each request an authenticated identity and lets us use our existing identity policies at the gateway."
Max Baumgarten, Security Engineer at Flexport