"We're not asking for charity": Wikimedia CEO calls out AI for unpaid data use

AxiosOctober 2, 2026en

Wikipedia is starting to feel the effects of the AI-driven shift in how people find information, with page views falling 8% in the latest year, new Wikimedia Foundation CEO Bernadette Meehan tells Axios. Why it matters: Wikipedia is a crucial source of information for AI models, but those same models increasingly allow people to get Wikipedia-derived information without ever visiting the site — potentially threatening the ecosystem that keeps the online encyclopedia running. Driving the news: Wikipedia page views declined 8% in 2025, and while the drop wasn't unexpected, "that doesn't mean that we're sort of starry-eyed about it and not concerned about it," Meehan said. Follow the money: The

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