- According to the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia’s human-pageviews are down ~8% year-over-year after adjusting for bots. (TechCrunch)
- The foundation attributes the decline primarily to two trends:
- Search engines increasingly using generative AI summaries in results screens instead of linking to websites like Wikipedia. (TechCrunch)
- Younger users turning to social-video platforms rather than directly visiting open-web sources. (TechCrunch)
- Wikipedia notes that while its content still reaches people via those search summaries (and other platforms), the decline in direct visits poses risks: fewer volunteer editors, fewer donors, less community engagement. (TechCrunch)
- The foundation is taking steps: creating frameworks for content attribution, building teams to expand reach, and seeking volunteers to support creation and curation. (TechCrunch)
- Google disputes the claim that AI summaries in search are directly reducing traffic. (TechCrunch)
🧠 Implications
- The shift in how information is accessed (AI summaries + social video rather than open-web links) could reduce traffic to foundational knowledge sites and alter the economics of open content platforms.
- For production AI systems (relevant to your work): reliance on third-party open content (like Wikipedia) means source-link attribution and content supply chain risk matter. Fewer visits might translate into less content update, fewer editors, and reduced freshness of reference data.
- This trend underscores the importance of knowing where your training/reference data comes from, especially when that data pool may shrink or become less reliable.
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