Wikipedia at 25: Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon Become Paying Customers of Wikimedia Enterprise API

The world's largest encyclopedia isn't just a free resource anymore—it's a premium fuel for the AI revolution. Coinciding with Wikipedia's 25th anniversary on January 15, 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that several tech titans have officially joined its paid tier, the Wikimedia Enterprise API.

Big Tech Enters the Wikimedia Enterprise API Ecosystem

According to The Verge, giants like Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon are now paying for access, joining Google which was an early adopter. The roster of paying customers also includes AI-native companies like Perplexity and Mistral AI. This shift marks a significant moment for the non-profit foundation as it capitalizes on the massive demand for high-quality, human-curated data.

Why AI Giants are Finally Paying Up

Lane Becker, the foundation's senior director of earned revenue, noted that the enterprise version is specifically designed for the needs of large-scale commercial entities. For AI companies, the clean, structured data from Wikipedia is invaluable for training Large Language Models (LLMs) and improving search accuracy. It's a move away from the 'wild west' of web scraping toward a more stable and ethical data pipeline.