Key Takeaways
ChatGPT has overtaken Wikipedia in monthly web traffic according to multiple sources, with traffic surging in 2025 while Wikipedia's unique visitors and total visits have declined.
Wikipedia remains the most cited source in ChatGPT outputs, even as ChatGPT's rise may be contributing to Wikipedia's traffic decline.
Citation patterns differ sharply across AI platforms, with Perplexity favoring Reddit and YouTube, and Google AI Overviews showing a more balanced mix.
Marketers must tailor their strategies for inclusion in these platforms, focusing on GEO to maximize brand visibility in AI-generated answers.
Azoma offers comprehensive tooling for optimizing brand mentions and citations across these platforms.
Introduction
In a landmark shift that signals the changing landscape of internet information consumption, ChatGPT has officially overtaken Wikipedia in monthly traffic in May. ChatGPT reached 5.5 billion monthly visits in June 2025, rising 13% month-over-month, while Wikipedia saw a sharp -6.1% drop.
This milestone represents more than just a traffic victory—it demonstrates the exponential growth of AI-powered search across the internet. By March 2025, Wikipedia attracted half a billion fewer site visits than ChatGPT, with Wikipedia's unique monthly visitors declining by about 18% since March 2022. The growth trajectory for ChatGPT continues to accelerate, fundamentally changing how people access and consume information online.
Wikipedia Training Data was Crucial for OpenAI's ChatGPT Development
The irony of ChatGPT's traffic dominance over Wikipedia runs deep. Wikipedia served as one of the primary training sources used by OpenAI in developing ChatGPT, providing the structured, factual content that helped these AI systems learn to generate coherent responses. As Dean D. McElwee pointed out, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, envisioned "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."
The ChatGPT training data from Wikipedia's encyclopedia format was critical to the model's development, creating a foundational knowledge base that OpenAI leveraged to build its conversational AI capabilities. As ChatGPT and other AI search experiences have soared, Wikipedia and other sites traffic has declined.
This shift reflects a fundamental change in user behavior: rather than navigating to Wikipedia to research topics themselves, users are increasingly turning to AI-powered interfaces that can synthesize information from multiple sources instantly. The convenience of conversational AI search is drawing users away from traditional encyclopedia sites, even as those sites remain crucial to the AI's underlying knowledge base.
How Often Does ChatGPT Reference Wikipedia?
Despite potentially being a proponent of Wikipedia's traffic loss, ChatGPT maintains a heavy reliance on the platform for its citations. According to recent LinkedIn analysis of over 500 million citations from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, Wikipedia's share of ChatGPT citations surged to 13% after November 2024, peaking at 15% in March 2025 before dropping to around 7.5%. While these percentages fluctuate, Wikipedia remains the most referenced single domain by ChatGPT by a significant margin.
ChatGPT citations frequently include other sources such as Reddit, G2 (particularly relevant for B2B SaaS marketers), and traditional publications like Forbes, Business Insider, and TechRadar, though exact percentages vary by study. The pattern of ChatGPT citations reveals how the platform draws from diverse internet sources while maintaining Wikipedia as its primary reference point. Understanding ChatGPT citations behavior is crucial for marketers seeking to optimize their content for AI visibility.
Perplexity Citations and Traffic Patterns
Perplexity shows a dramatically different pattern compared to ChatGPT citations, drawing heavily from Reddit and YouTube, with Reddit being the dominant source for citations. This reflects Perplexity's preference for community-driven and video content sources over traditional encyclopedia references.
Google AI Overviews Citation Distribution
Google AI Overviews demonstrates a more balanced citation distribution among the three platforms, with YouTube, LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit all appearing prominently. Government and educational sources (.gov, .edu) are also heavily represented. Recent studies show that the proportion of citations from Reddit and Quora has declined, while YouTube and LinkedIn have become more prominent in Google's AI responses.
What can Marketers do with ChatGPT Citation Data?
For marketers looking to optimize their presence in AI-generated responses, understanding ChatGPT citations patterns is crucial. To maximize visibility in AI responses, marketers should focus on getting mentioned on the sites these models reference most, like Wikipedia and Reddit.
Understanding these evolving citation patterns is essential as AI platforms become primary information gateways across the internet, requiring marketers to adapt their content strategies for maximum AI visibility. Monitoring ChatGPT citations trends helps marketers identify which sources are most likely to be referenced.
How to Get Included in Cited Platforms on ChatGPT
Azoma's software streamlines the GEO citation process by identifying relevant opportunities for brand mentions across the platforms that matter most to AI models. Our platform helps clients discover relevant Reddit discussions where they can contribute valuable insights, Wikipedia articles where their expertise or products merit inclusion, and publication opportunities that align with their industry. Azoma also simplifies outreach to publishers by providing clients outreach tools. (News and Media is the website category with the most referral traffic from ChatGPT).
The Azoma Mention Builder makes inclusion in these highly cited platforms easy, leading to visibility in AI-generated answers.
Contact us to learn more.
Article Author: Max Sinclair