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Wikipedia, often called one of the last good websites on the internet, is seeing a decline in people actually visiting its pages. According to a new blog post from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Marshall Miller, human pageviews on Wikipedia have dropped by 8% year-over-year. And the reasons behind that dip might sound pretty familiar: AI-powered search and the rise of short-form social video.
Let’s unpack this.
AI and TikTok vs. The Open Web
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The way we look up information has changed—fast. Instead of clicking through to search results, more and more people are getting direct answers from search engines that use generative AI. Think AI summaries at the top of the search page that give you a neatly packaged response without needing to leave the platform.
Plus, younger generations are turning to social video platforms to find quick takes and tutorials—bypassing the open web entirely, including sites like Wikipedia.
That brings us to a key shift: even though information from Wikipedia is still being used under the hood, people aren’t always realizing where it comes from. That’s a big deal for a site that relies heavily on organic visits to attract volunteer editors and small donations from readers like you and me.
Wait… Wasn’t Traffic Up Earlier This Year?
Yes, but here’s the catch: most of that surge in traffic during May and June 2025 turned out to be bot-driven. Wikipedia recently updated its bot detection systems and found that a lot of the “unusually high traffic” was actually coming from bots designed to avoid being flagged. So when those visits were filtered out, the human numbers told a different story.
Why This Matters Beyond Wikipedia
Marshall Miller has a point: if people aren’t visiting Wikipedia, then fewer volunteers are likely to help expand and improve it. And without donations, it’s harder to keep the organization running smoothly.
He also brings up something that hits close to home for many: the risk of losing track of where our online information actually comes from. If AI is giving us the answers, but we never click through, we don’t always see the careful, community-driven process behind the facts.
To tackle this, the Wikimedia Foundation is:
- Working on a new framework for how its content gets credited
- Running two internal teams focused on reaching new readers
- Calling on more volunteers to support its mission
- Encouraging tech companies to guide users back to Wikipedia
What You Can Do
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If you care about high-quality, human-curated knowledge, Miller has a gentle ask: support it. That could mean donating, volunteering, or even just being more intentional about how you search and share information.
“When you search for information online, look for citations and click through to the original source material,” he writes. It’s about staying connected to the real people who keep reliable information alive—and reminding others to do the same.
In a world where algorithms and AI are shaping more of what we see, a little intention goes a long way.
Keywords: Wikipedia traffic drop, AI search summaries, generative AI, Wikimedia Foundation, social video platforms, knowledge source attribution, human-curated content, volunteer editing, internet trends 2025, bot detection Wikipedia
