Wikipedia is backing off a plan to test AI article summaries.Earlier this month, the platform announced plans to trial the feature for about 10 percent of mobile web visitors.To say they weren't well-received by editors would be an understatement.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) then changed plans and cancelled the test.The AI summaries would have appeared at the top of articles for 10 percent of mobile users.Readers would have had to opt in to see them.The AI-generated summaries only appeared "on a set of articles" for the two-week trial period.Editor comments in the WMF's announcement (via ) ranged from "Yuck" to "Grinning with horror." One editor wrote, "Just because Google has rolled out its AI summaries doesn't mean we need to one-up them.
I sincerely beg you not to test this, on mobile or anywhere else.This would do immediate and irreversible harm to our readers and to our reputation as a decently trustworthy and serious source.""Wikipedia has in some ways become a byword for sober boringness, which is excellent," the editor continued."Let's not insult our readers' intelligence and join the stampede to roll out flashy AI summaries."Editors' gripes weren't limited to the idea.
They also criticized the nonprofit for excluding them from the planning phase."You also say this has been 'discussed,' which is thoroughly laughable as the 'discussion' you link to has exactly one participant, the original poster, who is another WMF employee," an editor wrote.A Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson shared the following statement with Engadget:The organization didn't rule out future uses of AI.But they said editors won't be left in the dark next time.
"Bringing generative AI into the Wikipedia reading experience is a serious set of decisions, with important implications, and we intend to treat it as such," the spokesperson told ."We do not have any plans for bringing a summary feature to the wikis without editor involvement."Update, June 13, 2025, 12:52PM ET: This story has been corrected to note that Wikipedia never actually started its AI summary test.The plan was announced, but cancelled before it took place.
A statement from the Wikimedia Foundation has also been added, and the headline has been updated as well.