Wikimedia chief warns AI-driven traffic drop threatens Wikipedia's funding

Bernadette Meehan, chief executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, reported that traffic to left-leaning Wikipedia pages has dropped, with an eight-percent reduction in page views. She explained that generative AI models now often provide Wikipedia-sourced answers without sending users to the site, threatening the community-driven platform’s sustainability. The foundation earns about ten percent of its operating costs from commercial customers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Perplexity, though the list does not include OpenAI or Anthropic.

Meehan emphasized that fewer visitors mean fewer donations, which make up roughly eighty percent of the budget, and could also reduce the pool of potential editors. She expressed concern about the trend despite not being surprised by it. The CEO declined to disclose all enterprise agreements, citing confidentiality.