Wikipedia Announces New AI Partnerships With Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and More

Wikipedia's announcement of new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, and Perplexity, which will join Google and other companies already using its content to train their AI models, marks a significant expansion of its collaborative efforts in the AI space. This development has significant implications for website owners, as it may lead to an increase in AI bot traffic to their sites. With more companies training their AI models on Wikipedia's content, there is a higher likelihood that these models will be used to generate traffic to other websites, potentially impacting server loads, advertising revenue, and content engagement. Website owners should be prepared to handle potential changes in their website's traffic patterns and adjust their strategies accordingly. To prepare for these changes, website owners can take several steps: monitor their website's traffic patterns closely to identify any unusual activity, update their llms.txt files to reflect the new AI partnerships and potential traffic sources, and consider implementing measures to differentiate between human and AI-generated traffic to ensure accurate analytics and advertising revenue tracking.