Wikipedia Turns 25, Lands AI Deals With Amazon and Meta

One of the internet's last free knowledge havens just figured out how to thrive in the age of artificial intelligence.

Wikipedia celebrated its 25th birthday this week by announcing major partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity, and France's Mistral AI. These companies will now pay to access Wikipedia's vast encyclopedia at speeds and volumes designed for their AI systems.

The move solves a problem that's been brewing for years. AI companies have been training their chatbots on Wikipedia's free content, but the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that runs the site wasn't seeing any of the revenue these tools generate. Meanwhile, Wikipedia still relies on donations to keep the lights on.

The new deals change that equation. While the foundation didn't share financial details, these partnerships mean the world's fifth most popular website can finally monetize the heavy traffic coming from AI companies. Google became Wikipedia's first AI customer back in 2022, with smaller players like search engine Ecosia following last year.

What makes this story remarkable is how different it could have been. Other content creators have sued AI companies over copyright issues and unauthorized data scraping. Publishers and artists argue they deserve compensation when their work trains profitable AI systems.

The Bright Side

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales took a different path. He actually welcomes AI companies training on Wikipedia content. Rather than fighting the technology or demanding takedowns, he's embracing partnerships that respect both sides.

This approach preserves what makes Wikipedia special. The site remains completely free for everyone who visits it. Students researching homework, curious readers exploring new topics, and yes, AI systems learning about the world can all still access the same information.

But now the volunteer editors and infrastructure that make Wikipedia possible have a sustainable funding source. The deals recognize that creating and maintaining reliable information costs money, even when that information is freely shared.

For a platform built entirely by unpaid volunteers over two and a half decades, finding revenue without ads or paywalls seemed nearly impossible. These partnerships show there's a third way: charge the commercial users who benefit most while keeping the front door wide open for everyone else.

Wikipedia's solution offers a blueprint for other knowledge commons struggling with the AI boom. You can monetize without selling out.