The Wikimedia Futures Lab is rooted in the observation that the way people access, produce, and trust knowledge is being fundamentally reshaped – and change is needed for the Wikimedia projects to stay relevant. Adapting to this new transformation requires movement-wide conversations, bold experimentation, and strategic alignment. It is in that spirit that Wikimedia Deutschland and the Wikimedia Foundation initiated the Wikimedia Futures Lab: a series of international conversations centered around possible responses to global trends.
After a successful kick-off event in Frankfurt at the beginning of the year, the Futures Lab made a stop at the post-conference of Wikimedia Europe’s general assembly on April 26. At this event, representatives from over 20 European affiliates met in Prague, Czech Republic, to learn more about the global trends impacting Wikimedia and discuss hypotheses about how affiliates and communities should respond to these challenges in Europe. To inspire Wikimedians in their reflections about the future, external experts with a variety of backgrounds in computer science, media industry, product design, and EU policy shared lessons learned about how their organizations are responding to new technological shifts.
Wikipedia: A critical piece of public knowledge infrastructure
In the opening session, the podcaster and AI lecturer Josef Holý set the tone of the event by arguing that the current moment represents a shift in “cognitive power”, in which control over information increasingly shapes perception and people’s sense of shared reality. According to his analysis, in a world dominated by AI systems, information is no longer simply distributed but curated and optimized for attention. As a result, emotionally engaging content tends to be amplified over verified facts, while control over knowledge becomes concentrated in the hands of a small number of powerful companies.
Within this framework, he presented Wikipedia not merely as an information website, but as a critical piece of public knowledge infrastructure and an essential support for democratic societies. In that context, the central challenge stressed by Josef Holý is not only to defend Wikipedia as a platform, but also to scale its model and values across the broader information ecosystem.
Capitalizing on the value of human-made knowledge
The AI panel explored the decline of human readership as a key concern for the sustainability of Wikipedia’s model. As AI assistants, search engines, and social platforms provide instant answers, fewer users visit Wikipedia directly. This shift raises questions about how to remain visible and relevant in a world where users may never visit a website directly.
Yet the discussions were far from pessimistic. There was strong consensus that Wikipedia’s core strengths – its community-driven governance, its neutral point of view and its public-interest mission – are more relevant than ever. In an information environment marked by overload and uncertainty, Wikipedia can offer something increasingly rare: reliable, verifiable, human-made content.
In a second panel focused on readers, speakers shared lessons from media organizations that are facing similar challenges and experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences. They discussed approaches centered on building more direct relationships with readers, diversifying distribution channels, and developing new product formats adapted to new consumption habits. The conversation highlighted the need for organizations to adapt strategically and structurally to new trends in knowledge consumption, while stressing how difficult these internal transformation processes can be.
Different hypotheses about the future of the Wikimedia projects
Following the morning’s panels and discussions, participants moved into the collaborative reflection part of the workshop where they developed hypotheses on how the Wikimedia movement should respond to the challenges raised on stage. Drawing on what they’d heard from the morning’s sessions and on their own local contexts and experiences, participants exchanged perspectives on a variety of topics such as how to increase readership, retain new contributors, or strengthen Wikipedia brand awareness. Here are some examples of hypotheses generated by the participants and discussed during the workshop:
People are not aware of the uniqueness of Wikipedia. We need to change the narrative and create one that is accessible to a broader audience.
Users prefer AI not because of AI but because of the UX experience and interface. People want conversational access to knowledge.
Users are overwhelmed with current digital landscape, Wikipedia should provide smaller pieces of information like FAQ of articles and summaries of articles
These hypotheses can serve as a basis for experiments that will be developed by the participants to test these ideas.
A “Futures Lab in a box” for further conversations
In the evaluation survey, participants emphasized the value of creating such space for open conversations on complex and sometimes controversial topics, for example around the use of AI on the Wikimedia projects. This is why the idea of a “Futures Lab in a box” – a tool kit to enable other organizations and volunteers to organize Futures Lab workshops with their communities – received strong support among the participants. The organizers are now working on such a guide, based on the feedback received from potential event organizers, and plan to publish it before Wikimania to ensure that follow up conversations on these key topics take place in the movement.
The Futures Lab itself is an ongoing experiment that the organizers keep evaluating, iterating and adapting with each new format to increase awareness around global trends and encourage innovation in the movement. If you are interested in hosting Futures Lab conversations with your communities, feel free to reach out to us for support.
The full documentation of the Prague workshop is available on Meta-Wiki. If you have any questions about the Prague workshop, the “Futures lab in a box”, or anything related to the Futures Lab process, feel free to contact the organizers at futureslab@wikimedia.de.
Can you help us translate this article?
In order for this article to reach as many people as possible we would like your help. Can you translate this article to get the message out?
Start translation