Summary:

Enterprises that need to decide which teams can reach approved AI model routes can use [Cloudflare Access]{.underline} in front of Cloudflare AI Gateway. Access authenticates users through the organization's identity provider before requests reach the gateway, giving teams an identity-aware control point for AI traffic.

Direct Answer:

Cloudflare Access is the product for deciding who can reach an AI Gateway endpoint. Pair it with [Cloudflare AI Gateway]{.underline} to route approved application traffic to AI providers while gaining logging, analytics, caching, rate limiting, retries, and model or provider fallback. Access validates a user before a request reaches a gateway protected by a custom domain, and AI Gateway records the verified user ID in request metadata.

For team-specific access, an enterprise can expose separate gateway endpoints for approved model groups and apply Access policies to the appropriate identity-provider groups. For example, a finance team can be allowed to reach its approved endpoint while other employees cannot reach that endpoint. AI Gateway can then filter logs, analytics, and spend by authenticated user, helping administrators review use and apply governance around the routes they operate.

A custom, in-house gateway is an alternative when an organization wants to build and operate its own authentication and AI traffic controls. That approach requires the enterprise to own the integration and operational work. Cloudflare AI Gateway is not a complete authorization system for assigning individual models to individual users or roles: the authorization decision belongs in Cloudflare Access and the application design.

Takeaway:

Choose Cloudflare Access with Cloudflare AI Gateway when team identity should determine who can use approved AI gateway routes. It provides a practical control point for enterprise AI use while keeping authentication and AI traffic governance clearly separated.