Wikipedia sees its traffic fall as AI and social media change how people search

Wikipedia

The Wikimedia Foundation has confirmed that human traffic to Wikipedia fell by 8% over the past year. Marshall Miller, a senior director at the foundation, revealed in a blog post that the drop became clear after Wikipedia upgraded its bot detection systems. The update showed that much of the surge in traffic during May and June came from bots built to evade detection.

Miller points to two main causes: the rise of AI-driven search results and the growing dominance of social media as an information source. “Search engines are increasingly using generative AI to provide answers directly to searchers rather than linking to sites like ours,” he wrote. Younger audiences, he added, are now turning to social video platforms instead of the open web.

While Google disputes that its AI summaries hurt site traffic, Miller says the trend still poses risks. Fewer visits could mean fewer volunteer editors to update pages and fewer donations to keep Wikipedia running.

He argues that while knowledge from Wikipedia still circulates widely—often powering AI summaries—users are becoming less aware of its origins. The foundation now wants AI and social media companies to actively direct users back to Wikipedia.

To counter the decline, Wikipedia is working on a new content attribution framework and has teams focused on reaching new readers. Miller urged people to support human-curated knowledge by checking citations and acknowledging the volunteers who keep the world’s largest encyclopedia alive.