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Introducing Radar Researcher: An AI tool for exploring Internet data in plain language (opens in new tab)

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Cloudflare Radar Researcher is an AI-powered assistant that lets users explore Radar’s Internet data through natural-language questions. It replaces manual API queries, filters, and chart hunting with interactive visualizations, explanations, follow-up questions, and auditable analysis. The beta tool is designed for both casual users and technical researchers, while grounding responses in real data from Radar’s API.

Why Cloudflare Built Radar Researcher

  • Cloudflare Radar publishes global Internet data covering:
    • DNS queries from the 1.1.1.1 resolver
    • HTTP traffic across Cloudflare’s network
    • Internet quality measurements from Cloudflare Speed Test
    • Network outages and other datasets
  • Radar serves a wide audience, from journalists and curious users to network operators and academics.
  • AI lowers the barrier to using complex datasets by allowing users to ask questions without knowing a dataset’s structure, terminology, or API.
  • The tool is especially useful for people working under time pressure, such as journalists investigating current Internet disruptions.

Natural-Language Data Exploration

  • Radar Researcher is available from every Radar page in a docked panel.
  • Users can:
    • Ask questions in plain language.
    • Receive short answers or more detailed reports.
    • View real, interactive Radar charts alongside explanations.
    • Continue with suggested follow-up questions.
    • Use text, voice input, or Radar’s search bar.
  • Conversations are saved in searchable history, can be pinned, and can be shared through links that expire after 30 days.
  • Users can inspect how the assistant interpreted their question, which datasets it queried, and how it derived its answer.

Explaining Existing Charts

  • An “Explain with AI” action lets users start a conversation from any Radar visualization.
  • The assistant receives:
    • A screenshot of the chart for visual context.
    • The exact underlying data from Radar’s API.
    • The current location, date range, and applied filters.
  • This combination lets the model explain the exact chart being viewed while preserving numerical accuracy and context.

Example: Internet Quality in Portugal

  • A user can ask about home Internet quality in Portugal without manually selecting API parameters or searching Radar pages.
  • Researcher queries the Internet quality API and presents the results through familiar interactive charts.
  • Users can ask follow-up questions, such as comparing Portugal with Spain or another neighboring country.
  • The assistant can also suggest related investigations, including common Internet outages.

Example: Investigating an Internet Shutdown

  • Researcher can support more open-ended investigations for engineers, researchers, journalists, and network operators.
  • For Iran’s 2026 government-directed shutdowns, it:
    • Retrieved recorded outage events.
    • Collected corresponding HTTP traffic data.
    • Explained the timeline in natural language.
  • The analysis described traffic falling from approximately 0.58 on January 7 to nearly zero by January 9, partially recovering around January 17, and approaching normal levels by January 27.
  • It displayed the findings as an annotated traffic chart and a table of outages, including another shutdown beginning February 28.
  • Suggested follow-ups included comparing Iran’s traffic with neighboring countries.

Cloudflare’s Technical Implementation

  • The application runs entirely on Cloudflare’s developer platform.
  • A Cloudflare Worker uses the Cloudflare Agents SDK.
  • Each conversation is stored in a stateful Durable Object with its own SQLite database.
  • Chat history, titles, and streaming responses persist even if users leave the page during generation.
  • Workers AI runs open models, including Kimi K2.7.
  • An ordered fallback chain across three model families helps maintain availability if one model provider reaches capacity.
  • Requests are routed through AI Gateway.

Radar Researcher makes Cloudflare’s extensive public datasets easier to use without sacrificing precision or transparency. It is particularly valuable when users need fast, context-specific analysis backed by interactive charts and verifiable source data.