Wikipedia just made big moves with Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft for AI
To mark its 25th birthday, Wikipedia has signed deals with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and Mistral AI.
These companies now get access to huge amounts of Wikipedia content through paid licensing agreements that provide access at a volume and speed designed specifically for their needs.
The timing is interesting—human visits to Wikipedia dropped by 8% last year while bot traffic increased.
Why is this a big deal?
Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales says it's good that AI uses "human curated" info from the site—but he's clear that tech giants should pay up for the privilege.
This follows a similar paid deal with Google in 2022.
The new agreements are part of a bigger plan: Wikipedia wants to set up paid access for AI companies so it can keep running its massive library of 65 million articles (in 300 languages!) built by thousands of volunteers.
What's next for Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is also working on its own smart tools—think AI helpers for fixing broken links or chatbots that answer questions using real Wiki quotes.
And there's a leadership change ahead: CEO Maryana Iskander steps down on January 20.