Bernadette Meehan, the new chief executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, told Axios that Wikipedia is beginning to feel the effects of how artificial intelligence is changing information-seeking: page views fell 8% in 2025.
Why this matters
Wikipedia is a primary information source for generative AI models, but those same models increasingly provide Wikipedia-derived information to users without directing them to the site. That dynamic could threaten the ecosystem that funds and supplies volunteer editors for the online encyclopedia.
The details
Meehan said the drop in traffic was not unexpected, but it is still a concern: “that doesn't mean that we're sort of starry-eyed about it and not concerned about it,” she said.
Money and access: who pays?
Wikimedia runs a program that charges large-scale commercial users for reliable, high-volume access to its data. Publicly disclosed enterprise customers — including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Perplexity — contribute payments that amount to roughly 10% of the organization’s operating expenses.
Two major generative AI developers, OpenAI and Anthropic, do not appear on Wikimedia’s publicly listed enterprise customers. Meehan said Wikimedia has other, non-public agreements but declined to identify those companies. Both OpenAI and Anthropic declined to comment.
Meehan, who became CEO in January and previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Chile, said big tech’s reception has been mixed. Some companies accept the principle that entities profiting from Wikipedia should help sustain it; others acknowledge what Wikimedia considers excessive use of its data but have refused to pay for enterprise access. “We're not asking for charity,” Meehan said.
The structural tension
There is an unusual economic tension: Wikipedia’s content is freely available and Wikimedia does not intend to change that, which limits its leverage over AI firms unwilling to pay for access.
Why traffic still matters
Traffic affects Wikimedia beyond prestige. About 80% of the Foundation’s operating budget comes from small donations, many prompted by banners shown to site visitors. Visitors also form the pipeline for future volunteer editors: fewer readers means fewer potential editors, Meehan warned.
The irony and editorial boundary
Meehan argued that Wikipedia may never have been more important to the broader information ecosystem: “We’re the backbone,” she said of Wikipedia’s role for AI knowledge engines. At the same time she draws a distinction between AI using Wikipedia and AI creating Wikipedia. While AI is controversial among volunteer communities that set their own rules, it is already used for tasks such as translation, finding broken links, and helping new editors spot issues.
Meehan expressed a clear boundary: AI should assist human editors rather than replace them. “I don't think you will ever see AI writing or generating Wikipedia articles,” she said. When asked whether Wikipedia articles will still be written by humans for humans five years from now, she replied: "I do."
Language coverage and knowledge inequality
Meehan also highlighted who might be left out if commercially developed AI becomes the main gateway to knowledge. Wikipedia exists in roughly 300 languages, including many that are unlikely to be commercially attractive markets for AI companies. She raised the possibility of a knowledge divide in which the best access increasingly requires paying for AI subscriptions.
Bottom line
Wikipedia became indispensable to generative AI during the first phase of the boom. Its next challenge is to ensure that AI does not weaken the human and financial ecosystems that made Wikipedia indispensable in the first place.
