Wikipedia’s fandom is powerful within the face of AI

[ad_1] In case you grew up with computer systems in your classroom, there’s probability you heard this instruction earlier than beginning a analysis paper: Don’t belief Wikipedia.

The reasoning? Anybody can go in and make modifications to a Wikipedia web page. That is largely true , although pages which can be topic to a excessive quantity of abuse or vandalism will be locked. Nevertheless, the notion that the web site is unreliable or a playground of misinformation has been overstated in colleges. The crowdsourced on-line encyclopedia depends on a neighborhood of volunteers, often known as “Wikipedians,” who adhere to a rigorous editing process . Citations can be found on the backside of every article, and public-facing “ talk pages ” hooked up to each entry enable editors to debate modifications and attempt to attain consensus. And the location has an environment friendly monitoring system, with respected editors and Wikipedia-approved bots watching entries in actual time.

“The truth that we have been all instructed to not use it in class is de facto irritating as a result of we simply weren’t taught how one can really use it,” Dean, a 22-year-old content material creator, instructed Vox.

Final December, Dean posted a TikTok urging his followers to make the most of Wikipedia, emphasizing its significance in an period of rampant misinformation. He’s like many other creators and users on social media who're discovering the credibility and worth of the 25-year-old platform in the identical second that sometimes-faulty AI chatbots are ascendant. For instance, research carried out by the BBC in December 2024 discovered that main AI fashions like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s CoPilot inaccurately summarize information when prompted, and a Guardian investigation in January 2026 discovered that Google’s AI Overview was displaying customers false and deceptive medical info that put their well being in danger.

All of this makes a information platform that’s human-generated and rigorously monitored look fairly interesting. If there’s any indication that the general public understands its necessity, the Wikimedia Basis, which funds and helps Wikipedia, raised a staggering $184 million in 2025, a $4 million increase from the earlier yr.

On the similar time, the Washington Post reported in August 2025 that “suspicious edits, and even totally new articles, with errors, made-up citations and different hallmarks of AI-generated writing maintain popping up on the free on-line encyclopedia,” forcing human editors to search out and repair them. And Wikipedia is now working instantly with the massive language fashions that many customers see it as counterbalancing. In January, the group announced a brand new batch of tech firms that can practice their AI fashions utilizing Wikipedia Enterprise, a paid product permitting companions to entry its content material at scale. This isn’t an unprecedented move , nevertheless it raises considerations about the way forward for the early-internet staple. How will it preserve its human-powered identification amid AI’s chokehold on the web?

There’s nonetheless nostalgia for the “outdated web”

Wikipedia may need had a giant yr for fundraising, nevertheless it’s confronted the identical struggles with visibility as different digital publishers. Final October, the group reported that its month-to-month human web page views had seen a roughly 8 p.c decline in comparison with 2024 and attributed it to the uptick in individuals utilizing generative AI — which, once more, makes use of Wikipedia as a supply and supplies the information on to customers — and looking out on social media once they want info. (Analysis has proven that one in 5 People frequently will get their information from TikTok now, whereas the variety of People utilizing ChatGPT has already doubled since 2023.)

That’s to not say Wikipedia’s gone out of trend. It stays a top source listed in Google search outcomes and AI summaries. Over the previous decade, its articles have been considered a total of 1.9 trillion times . It was the ninth most-visited web site on the planet in 2025.

There additionally appears to be a distinct segment, nostalgic enchantment to Wikipedia that persists on-line. It’s one thing that common Instagram accounts like @tldrwikipedia and @depthsofwikipedia have been in a position to capitalize on over the previous few years. The latter, run by Annie Rauwerda , options screenshots of the location’s extra particular and weird pages and boasts 1.6 million followers.

On TikTok, there’s a devoted Wikipedia fandom, with customers spreading the gospel of the web site (and its app ) and sharing their affinity for looking random articles. Final fall, Chisom, a latest grad and substitute instructor who prefers to not share her final title on-line for privateness causes, posted a TikTok saying she “unironically purchased a Wikipedia hat.” It obtained 1,000,000 views and a great deal of constructive feedback.

Chisom, 22, instructed Vox she grew up believing that Wikipedia was unreliable till a Tenth-grade instructor demonstrated how nicely the location’s monitoring system works and the way rapidly corrections are made in real-time. Now, she stated, she’s grow to be “rabbit-hole Wikipedia lady” and finds it far more user-friendly than Google’s AI overview.

“I undoubtedly use it extra,” she stated. “I used to make use of Google, and they'd have somewhat abstract of a star — who they’re married to, their youngsters. However since they began doing the entire AI abstract factor, that’s so unhelpful to me.”

The specter of AI lingers, however people provide hope

Regardless of renewed enthusiasm for Wikipedia on-line, the way forward for the location appears tenuous as AI creeps into extra elements of our on a regular basis lives, and, particularly, as a result of seeing the web site set up relationships with AI firms feels at odds with its human-first rules. Massive language fashions have been utilizing Wikipedia for some time now, famously with out their permission and at a high cost to the site .

Tech journalist Stephen Harrison, who covered Wikipedia on Slate for years, instructed Vox that he sees the LLM partnerships as “recognition” by tech firms that “their long-term future relies on nurturing initiatives like Wikipedia.” He’s extra involved concerning the political assaults the platform has confronted lately from individuals like Elon Musk. (Final yr, Musk criticized and called to defund Wikipedia after his entry was up to date to note a gesture he made throughout Trump’s inauguration that was extensively interpreted as a Nazi salute. He’s since launched the rival web site Grokipedia, with entries edited by his firm xAI.) Harrison can also be involved about web customers “forgetting” about Wikipedia in the event that they’re primarily consuming the location’s content material by AI summaries.

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Hannah Clover, a Wikipedian who has been working with the location since 2018, instructed Vox her considerations about AI’s affect are a bit much less apparent. It’s not that she believes AI will ever exchange human editors, however that its prominence will make sourcing more durable.

“I fear about it extra within the sense that a number of the sources that we cite may grow to be unreliable sooner or later,” Clover, 23, stated. “We now have a perennial sources listing, and generally you will have sources that have been beforehand dependable that grow to be unreliable as a result of they begin publishing AI slop out of nowhere.”

These AI offers present that Wikipedia continues to be a particularly essential information base. However it can inevitably be as much as the people who like it to maintain the location going. Clover acknowledges that a number of younger individuals struggling to pay their payments might not have the time or power to grow to be Wikipedians who edit the location, however that’s “not for a scarcity of curiosity.” Harrison, in the meantime, sees unbiased creators, like Depths of Wikipedia, as essential in preserving Wikipedia’s model alive. “Social media influencers depend on Wikipedia as a form of invisible basis for his or her information,” he stated. For now, all of the “outdated web” nostalgia on TikTok provides him some hope for a revival.

“I grew up when Wikipedia was thought of the Wild West of the web,” he stated. “It’s actually exceptional how Wikipedia has, in a number of methods, grow to be this storied establishment that folks have all these emotions of nostalgia and affection towards.”