Wikipedia is taking steps to ensure its platform remains sustainable in the age of artificial intelligence.
In a new blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, urged AI developers to use its content responsibly, give proper credit, and access its data through its paid product, Wikimedia Enterprise.
The Wikimedia Enterprise platform allows companies to use Wikipedia’s vast content efficiently without overloading its servers. Since it’s a paid service, it also helps support Wikipedia’s nonprofit mission. The foundation emphasized that responsible use of its content not only ensures fair attribution but also sustains the volunteer-driven ecosystem that keeps Wikipedia growing.
This announcement comes after Wikipedia detected a surge of traffic from AI bots that were scraping its site while trying to appear human. Once it improved its bot detection systems, the foundation discovered that much of its recent spike in traffic came from automated bots, not real users. At the same time, human page views dropped by about 8% compared to the previous year.
In its new guidelines, the organization asked AI developers to give credit to the human contributors behind Wikipedia’s articles and to make it clear where information originates. It warned that fewer visits to Wikipedia could result in fewer volunteer editors and fewer donations to keep the platform running.
Earlier this year, Wikipedia shared its own AI strategy focused on helping editors rather than replacing them. The plan includes using AI tools to handle repetitive tasks, improve translations, and assist with content workflows.
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With these steps, the Wikimedia Foundation hopes to balance the growth of AI technology with the continued success of one of the world’s most trusted sources of free information.
