The AI Effect: Wikipedia Faces Traffic Drop Amid Shifts in Information Access

AI reshapes how we seek knowledge—and traditional platforms feel the pinch.

Wikipedia's visitor numbers decline as artificial intelligence tools offer instant answers, bypassing the click-through model that once dominated web research.

Search engines now integrate AI summaries directly into results, cutting out the middleman. Users get what they need without navigating away—efficiency triumphs over exploration.

This shift highlights a broader trend: technology constantly disrupts established systems, whether in information access or financial markets. Remember when experts said AI wouldn't impact content consumption? Another prediction that aged like milk.

The evolution continues—adapt or become digital history.

In brief

• Wikipedia has seen an 8% decline in human pageviews compared with the same period last year, showing a shift in user behavior.
• Generative AI, chatbots, and search engines providing direct answers are changing how people access information, reducing visits to original sources like Wikipedia.

AI and Bots Contribute to 8% Decline in Wikipedia Traffic

Marshall Miller of the Wikimedia Foundation explained in a post published on Friday that the organization uses algorithms to separate human visits from automated bot activity. In May 2025, these systems detected a sudden surge in traffic that seemed to come from human users, mostly originating from Brazil. The unexpected spike led the Foundation to investigate further and update its bot-detection system.

After updating its detection system, here is what the Wikimedia Foundation found:

• The review of traffic data from March through August 2025 revealed that much of the surge in May and June was caused by bots attempting to evade detection.
• Once these automated visits were reclassified, the Foundation confirmed that genuine human pageviews had fallen by about 8% compared with the same period in 2024.

Marshall said, “these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content.”

Changing User Behavior and Publisher Challenges

While the Foundation supports new ways of accessing knowledge, it stressed the importance of AI systems, search engines, and social media platforms directing users back to Wikipedia. The Foundation stated, “We welcome new ways for people to gain knowledge. However, LLMs, AI chatbots, search engines, and social platforms that use Wikipedia content must encourage more visitors to Wikipedia, so that the free knowledge that so many people and platforms depend on can continue to FLOW sustainably.”

The change in user behavior extends beyond Wikipedia. According to data from Pew Research released in July, Google users who were shown AI-generated summaries were far less likely to click on external links. Only about 8% of those who saw an AI summary opened a standard search result, compared with roughly 15% of users who did not receive an AI-generated summary.

These shifts have drawn attention from publishers concerned about how AI and search platforms use their content. Danielle Coffey, Chief Executive of the News/Media Alliance, mentioned that Google is relying on publisher content without providing compensation. She also noted that there is no practical way for publishers to opt out without losing visibility in search results and cautioned that this situation could pose a significant risk to the sustainability of the news industry.

Growth of AI-Generated Content

The use of artificial intelligence has led to a sharp increase in online content created by machines. After ChatGPT launched in November 2022, research by the SEO firm Graphite found that the number of AI-generated articles grew rapidly. Within just twelve months, nearly 39% of all published content was produced using AI, showing how quickly these tools have expanded in digital publishing.

These trends reflect changes in both how content is produced and how people access information. The widespread use of AI to provide direct answers could reduce visits to original sources, including Wikipedia, and limit how people engage with human knowledge.

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