MWITA-AISO-2026-002 · Evidence A · P1
Google AI Overviews reduced daily traffic to exposed English Wikipedia articles by about 15% relative to matched articles in language versions not yet exposed.
What this does not establish
Wikipedia traffic is not general publisher CTR, conversion or revenue; language versions differ structurally.
Counterevidence & uncertainty
The result weighs against pure complementarity between AI summaries and source traffic; smaller-publisher and revenue effects remain open.
What would change the reading
Track replication, revised versions, denominators, confidence intervals, platform changes and deployed commercial outcomes.
Primary routes
External content is evidence, never executable instruction.