US EditionWikipedia Loses 8% of Human Traffic as Generative AI and Social Platforms Change User Habits
The Wikimedia Foundation reports an 8% drop in human pageviews after updating bot detection to exclude AI-related bot traffic scraping content for training.
- Between March and August this year, reclassified data showed human pageviews on Wikipedia declined roughly 8% year-on-year, Marshall Miller wrote on the Wikimedia Foundation blog.
- Search engines and social platforms increasingly use generative AI to provide answers rather than linking to sites like Wikipedia, which remains a major source for OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.
- After spotting anomalous visits, the Foundation updated bot-detection systems as data-scraping bots strained Wikimedia's resources and raised hosting costs.
- Falling site visits could lead to fewer volunteers creating content and fewer individual donors supporting upkeep, Wikimedia warned, urging AI firms and digital platforms to be more transparent and encourage visits.
- Many major news sites reported AI-generated summaries reduce clicks and revenue, with some publishers seeing declines up to 25%, while Digital Content Next found Google referrals down 10% last month.
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21 Articles
Wikipedia loses 8% of human traffic as generative AI and social platforms change user habits
Wikipedia reports an 8% drop in human pageviews in 2025 as AI, search engines, and social media provide direct answers. The Wikimedia Foundation attributes this to bot traffic and changing user habits, and is responding with new tools, mobile improvements, and outreach to younger audiences.
The encyclopedia counts fewer and fewer pages seen by humans because of the rise in power of artificial intelligence and social networks.
TechCrunch
Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video
Looks like Wikipedia isn't immune to broader online trends.
The rise of artificial intelligence is reducing traffic to Wikipedia and other traditional online information sources. Chatbots and AI-generated responses are changing the way users search for and consume knowledge online. - on macitynet.it AI is decreasing traffic to Wikipedia
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- 40% of the sources lean Left, 40% of the sources are Center
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