Wikipedia wants to be paid for AI scraping its content
Wikipedia is worried: thanks to AI-generated search summaries and social video apps, fewer people are actually clicking through to its site.
Over the past year, real human visits dropped by 8%.
Now, Wikimedia wants AI companies to use its content through paid services instead of just scraping it for free.
Wikipedia's traffic numbers
Earlier this year, Wikipedia found bots (mainly from Brazil) pretending to be people and inflating its traffic numbers.
Once they fixed their bot detection, it turned out actual pageviews from humans had fallen sharply between March and August 2025.
This isn't just about numbers—fewer visits mean less community engagement and fewer donations that keep Wikipedia running.
Wikimedia's new strategy
Wikimedia is asking AI companies to give proper credit to the volunteers behind Wikipedia and encourage users to visit the site directly.
They're clear that Wikipedia's strength comes from real people sharing knowledge.
Their new strategy is all about supporting editors with better tools—not replacing them with AI—so the community vibe stays strong.