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The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is experiencing a significant decline in traffic, which it attributes to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). On October 17, the Wikimedia association expressed on its blog an 8% drop in traffic compared to the previous year. The growing presence of AI in search engines provides Internet users with direct answers, which is driving them away from information sites like Wikipedia. Furthermore, the director of Wikimedia France, Rémy Gerbet, warns of the consequences of this trend on donations and the viability of the site, also highlighting the challenges related to false content that AI could introduce into the encyclopedia. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is experiencing a significant decline in traffic. This decrease of around 8% compared to 2024 is causing concern for the Wikimedia association. The phenomenon is attributed to the increasing use of artificial intelligence by search engines, as well as the rise of social media as new preferred sources of information for Internet users.The drop in Wikipedia trafficOn October 17, the Wikimedia association published a worrying report on its blog. It highlighted an 8% drop in Wikipedia traffic. This observation highlights the external influences altering user behavior. Indeed, users today are turning more to social media and search engines, which, through AI, provide answers directly without redirecting users to the online encyclopedia. The impact of artificial intelligence on traffic
Modern search engines are investing heavily in AI to improve the user experience. Instead of redirecting users to sites like Wikipedia, they provide the information they are looking for directly in a compressed and accessible format. This paradigm shift is one of the main causes of the decline in traffic to traditional news sites.Potential Impact on Wikipedia’s Funding Rémy Gerbet, director of Wikimedia in France, expressed his concerns about the economic repercussions of this decline in traffic. The association relies on donations to maintain and develop its site. A decrease in visits could therefore lead to a reduction in financial contributions, which would threaten the encyclopedia’s technological and structural maintenance capabilities.
Challenges Related to AI-Generated Content
In addition to the decline in traffic and donations, the rise of artificial intelligence poses another challenge: the spread of misinformation. AI makes it easy to create fake news sites that can be referenced as reliable sources on Wikipedia. This creates additional work for volunteer communities tasked with cleaning up and correcting this misinformation.
