Wikipedia Says Traffic Is Falling Due to AI Search Summaries and Social Video

Why It Matters

To counter the trend, Wikipedia is developing new attribution frameworks, running outreach teams to reach new readers, and urging platforms and users to click through to original sources.

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation reported an 8% year‑over‑year decline in human pageviews after updating its bot‑detection systems, revealing that unusually high traffic in May–June came largely from evasive bots. Foundation chief Marshall Miller attributed the drop to search engines increasingly delivering generative‑AI answers instead of links and younger users turning to social video, a shift Google disputes; Wikipedia warns this could reduce volunteer contributors and donor support. To counter the trend, Wikipedia is developing new attribution frameworks, running outreach teams to reach new readers, and urging platforms and users to click through to original sources.