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Last updated on July 8, 2025
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, reveals how running the site has changed, the impact of AI, and what the future of the internet looks like.
“We must get back to a culture of trust,” says Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, whose free online encyclopaedia has revolutionised the way the world accesses knowledge.
On the cusp of its 25th anniversary, Wikipedia is the fourth most popular website globally, behind only Google, YouTube, and Facebook. It’s the only nonprofit organisation in the top 50.
Amid today’s polarised digital discourse, Wikipedia remains a pillar of early web optimism. “I always joke that I’m a pathological optimist – and I’m still very positive and optimistic,” Jimmy reflects. “The internet continues to be a force for good in the world, despite a lot of hand-wringing about problems.”
Wikipedia Volunteers: ‘The Community’
Wikipedia operates as a user-generated compendium of knowledge – over 63 million pages of information, accessible to all, for free.
Around 15 million registered users have made an edit to a Wikipedia page, but the majority of edits are made by about 1% of Wikipedia users. This army of volunteers, ‘the community’, is responsible for the collective creation of Wikipedia’s knowledge.
Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has remained loyal to this human-centric, community focus. “Obviously everything is a lot bigger now, but Wikipedia remains very much true to our roots – volunteer-led, volunteer-managed, and focused on building the best high quality and neutral encyclopedia that we can,” Jimmy explains.
“Wikipedia crucially depends on a healthy community, committed to quality sources, and passionate about that neutrality. As long as people of good will can come together and chew on ideas together, we will always be making incremental progress.”
At London Tech Week this month, Jimmy spoke about the importance of human editors for verifying and editing content. He stressed that AI is not yet good enough to write Wikipedia articles, but it should be integrated as a support tool to suggest edits or assist with machine translation.
Crucially, he warned that users should be aware about the risks of inaccuracy with AI-generated content, as Wikipedia looks to be completely transparent when it comes to potential AI limitations.
AI & The Future of the Internet
AI’s growing influence is showing no signs of slowing down. According to The Tech Nation Report 2025, in the UK alone, the AI sector reached a combined market valuation of $230b in Q1 2025. When it comes to information online, we’ve seen rising issues around fake news and reliability, posing a potential threat to Wikipedia’s community-driven, open editorial model.
The UK’s new online safety bill attempts to regulate online content, but would require sites like Wikipedia to implement identity verification features, Jimmy explains.
Wikipedia would have to block unverified editors from modifying content, disrupting how the volunteers control information on the site. The Wikimedia Foundation is fighting back against the bill in an attempt to protect its transparent, collaborative editing process.
Wikipedia, Jimmy says, operates on trust. The site trusts users to contribute responsibly whilst having monitoring systems in place.
“We are living through a period with a crisis of trust – we have seen a collapse in trust in politics, journalism, and sometimes even each other,” Jimmy explains.
“AI is going to be a large part of what we have going forward, and there are going to be struggles against inappropriate regulation and censorship.”
Jimmy’s new book, The Seven Rules of Trust, comes out this autumn and is available for pre-sale here.
