As we celebrate Wikipedia Day on January 15, more than two decades after its launch, the online encyclopedia continues to play a critical role in how information is produced, verified, and circulated
At a time when artificial intelligence is quickly reshaping how people search for and consume information online, Wikipedia remains a crucial, if often overlooked, pillar of the internet’s knowledge ecosystem. As we celebrate Wikipedia Day on January 15, more than two decades after its launch, the online encyclopedia continues to play a critical role in how information is produced, verified, and circulated.
Nobody needs an introduction to Wikipedia. Over the past quarter-century, it has become the world’s leading reference site, a reliable click away for anyone turning to the internet to satisfy their curiosity. Today, it exists in more than 300 languages and is maintained by a vast global network of contributors who collaboratively write, edit, and verify knowledge. It has endured as a rare example of a publicly owned knowledge system, sustained by the resilience of people who are committed to building and protecting it.
Wikipedia’s own sources show that in October 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation reported an estimated 8 per cent decline in human page views compared with the same months in 2024. The foundation has speculated that this drop reflects changing search habits, particularly the growing use of generative AI tools and social media platforms to access information. Many users have noticed how Google has bumped down Wikipedia from its search results, while its own AI now takes the spot to provide answers to every search one makes on the Google search engine.
This might trigger the question whether, as technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, the online encyclopedia, founded in 2001, risks becoming obsolete. Available data suggests otherwise.
Wikipedia remains deeply embedded in the AI ecosystem. A recent study by SEO experts at Ahrefs found that Wikipedia is the single most cited source in ChatGPT. The assistant “clearly looks for structured, reference-style sources that summarise topics comprehensively and predictably,” the study notes.
What’s more, ChatGPT’s reliance on Wikipedia may be one of the factors helping to protect artificial intelligence systems from manipulation, given the platform’s emphasis on citations, transparency, and collective oversight. Sites like Wikipedia, homepages, and app-store pages are classified as “dead citations”, which means that it can’t be easily influenced through SEO, PR, or paid outreach.
Faster than ChatGPT
“One thing that continues to fascinate people is how fast Wikipedia is updated—whether it’s sports results, election outcomes, or notable deaths,” says Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution, in a recent blog post.
This speed highlights a key limitation mainstream AI models struggle with. “Large language models, such as ChatGPT and Grok, are trained on vast archives of existing information, but they aren’t optimised for real-time updates or for verifying fresh data,” Lih notes.
By contrast, Wikipedia’s large, distributed network of volunteer editors, known as Wikipedians, often updates articles within seconds or minutes of breaking news, outpacing the LLMs. This human-driven system allows the platform to respond quickly while maintaining editorial scrutiny.
The Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organisation headquartered in California, provides the technical infrastructure that makes this possible. However, it does not write or curate the content itself, a distinction that underscores Wikipedia’s unique model of collective knowledge production in an age increasingly dominated by automated systems.
