Wikipedia Traffic Declines as AI Reshapes Information Access
Wikipedia has experienced an 8% year-over-year drop in human pageviews, a shift attributed to the rising dominance of generative AI tools and social media platforms in information retrieval. Marshall Miller, Vice President of Product at the Wikimedia Foundation, highlighted the strain on infrastructure from automated systems scraping content—including increasingly sophisticated bots mimicking human behavior.
The trend reflects a broader transformation in search behavior, with users increasingly relying on AI-generated summaries rather than visiting source material. Wikimedia's data shows a notable surge in bot activity originating from Brazil since May 2025, coinciding with the decline in organic traffic.