Wikipedia signs business deals with top AI companies like Amazon and Microsoft
AP News • • world
Key Points:
- Wikipedia celebrated its 25th anniversary by announcing new business agreements with major AI companies such as Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and France’s Mistral AI to monetize AI access to its content.
- The Wikimedia Foundation emphasized that these deals help cover the costs of maintaining Wikipedia’s infrastructure, as AI companies require high-volume, fast access to its free knowledge base.
- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales supports AI training on Wikipedia data due to its human-curated quality but insists AI companies should fairly compensate the nonprofit for the strain AI traffic places on its servers.
- The Wikimedia Foundation is exploring AI tools to assist Wikipedia editors by automating tasks like updating dead links and enhancing the search experience with chatbot-style responses.
- Wikipedia faces political criticism,
