How the Wikimedia Movement is Responding to a Changing Internet  – Diff

For more than two decades, Wikipedia has stood as a symbol of what the internet can be at its best: collaborative, people-centered, and driven by a shared commitment to free knowledge. Powered by volunteers and supported by a global movement, Wikipedia has become one of the most trusted and widely used sources of information in the world.

But the internet – and the world around it – is changing rapidly. Artificial intelligence is transforming how knowledge is produced and consumed. Audiences are discovering information in new ways and in new places. Contributors across platforms expect different forms of collaboration and recognition. In this moment of transformation, the Wikimedia Movement is coming together to ensure that our projects remain deeply rooted in their values, while also being ready for what comes next.

This was the purpose of the first Wikimedia Futures Lab, which took place from January 30 to February 1, 2026 in Frankfurt am Main. The event was co-organized by Wikimedia Deutschland and the Wikimedia Foundation and brought together 110 participants from across the movement and the wider ecosystem of free knowledge.

The goal of the Futures Lab was clear: to better understand the key global trends shaping the internet and to develop concrete experiments for the Wikimedia projects that will help ensure their relevance in the years to come. Over three days, participants heard thought-provoking insights from external experts and engaged in deep reflections grounded in the lived experience of our volunteers and organizations. By the end of the Lab, more than 80 ideas had been generated. More than twenty of them evolved into concrete experiments that will now move into further exploration. A key driving idea behind the lab was to work in the wiki way – participants being bold, collaborating and making the change they feel they could take forward. The event was not about directing movement-wide action but about experiments Wikimedians could conduct themselves to prove or disprove hypotheses. 

A successful movement-wide experiment 

“This is one of the best wikimedia events [that has] ever happened. where we have been honest with ourselves and eager for change.” (anonymous feedback from participant)

The Futures Lab itself was an experiment, intended to test the hypothesis that addressing urgent shifts impacting the movement would require a highly participatory approach to sense-making and action. The organizers were pleased to see this hypothesis confirmed by the way participants engaged with the event journey and embraced the Lab mindset.

Participant feedback was indeed overwhelmingly positive, especially highlighting how the event helped create a strong sense of connection and belonging across the movement. The program balanced expert input and collaborative dialogue. Participants mostly valued the inclusion of external experts, which was a new program component compared to previous such events. At the same time, collaborative breakout sessions enabled participants to interpret trends in their own contexts, and co-design potential responses.

The program was structured around three main questions. How will AI affect human-generated content? Where and how will people find information in the next five years? What are contributors looking for online – and how might this evolve?

Responsible AI in service of our people, projects, and mission

The first track focused on Content & AI and centered on a fundamental challenge: how to ensure that human-created knowledge remains visible, trusted, and central in an increasingly AI-shaped environment. A key insight emerged early in the discussions: a machine generated knowledge ecosystem is not inevitable. The future of knowledge online depends on the decisions we make today.

AI undoubtedly presents real challenges for the Wikimedia projects and our volunteers. At the same time, it offers opportunities to strengthen our mission if used responsibly and in alignment with our values. Participants explored what it would mean to design AI chatbots that give back to Wikipedia instead of merely extracting content. They discussed how AI-supported tools could reduce the workload of volunteers, freeing up time and energy for mentoring and onboarding new editors. 

The focus was not on replacing human contributors by machine, but on supporting them. The conversation made clear that ethical, community-centered AI experimentation is essential if we want to shape technological change rather than only be shaped by it.

New ways of reaching new audiences

The second track turned to Consumers & Reuse and examined how people will consume information in the coming years. Drawing on perspectives from traditional media and digital advertising, we asked ourselves how Wikimedia can reach new audiences in an increasingly fragmented information ecosystem.

Participants discussed raising brand awareness, developing new reader-focused features and products, and reimagining our relationship with audiences to make the Wikimedia experience more fun and engaging. Several ideas emerged about how to ensure that free knowledge remains present and valued in the spaces where people seek information today. 

A human-centered movement

The third track focused on Contributors, the backbone of our projects. The discussions explored what motivates people to contribute online and how those motivations are changing. Across digital platforms, contributors expect new user experiences, more options for collaboration and better recognition of their work for intuitive and rewarding contributions. 

Here, too, the need for experimentation emerged as essential. How to improve recruitment of admins for small wikis and could temporary adminship help medium wikis? Could account creation be simplified? Could AI-supported feedback help retain newcomers and improve the quality of their first edits? Could editing assistants reduce repetitive tasks and free up time for more meaningful collaboration? How can we tell more compelling stories about Wikimedia to inspire people to share their knowledge on our projects? 

The Futures Lab is the beginning, not the end 

Throughout the Futures Lab, one message resonated strongly: staying relevant requires bold and structured experimentation. Technology alone will not solve structural challenges. After all, sustainable change can only succeed if technology, culture, and people are taken into account. But without testing new ideas, learning from them, and adapting quickly, we risk falling behind. This is the idea behind the “early adopter wikis” experiment, where a small number of wikis would volunteer to test innovative features and enable rapid testing.

Participants saw the rapid evolution of AI, changing audience behavior, and shifting contributor expectations as strategic questions that demand collaborative responses.

The next steps are already underway: The experiment owners continue working on the ideas that emerged at the Lab. Follow up conversations with event attendees will be hosted in the coming months and other communities will also consider what specific trends may mean to them.

The Wikimedia Futures Lab was an experiment in itself. And it showed that our movement is ready not only to respond to change, but to actively shape the future of the ecosystem of free knowledge. Wikipedia is not a relic of the early internet. It is a living project, sustained by people who care deeply about free knowledge and who are willing to adapt in order to protect and strengthen it. 

The full event documentation can be found online: recordings, participant survey analysis, experiments, and hypotheses. 

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