Wikipedia has officially banned the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for generating or rewriting article content. The new policy, now in effect on the English-language Wikipedia, marks one of the biggest editorial decisions the platform has made in years. According to The Verge, Wikipedia updated its guidelines late last week, and says that AI-written articles violate “several of Wikipedia’s core content policies”.
What is now banned and the two exceptions
Under the new rules, Wikipedia editors are not allowed to use AI tools to generate article content or rewrite existing text. The concern is less about accuracy but more about the subtle ways AI can distort meaning.
The policy itself notes, LLMs “can go beyond what you ask of them and change the meaning of the text such that it is not supported by the sources cited.”
In easier words, an AI tool may produce text that reads smoothly and sounds authoritative but shifts what an article is actually saying.
Wikipedia, however, has carved out two specific situations where AI tools are permitted. The first is writing assistance. Editors are allowed to use LLMs to suggest refinements to their own writing like grammar checking or light stylistic polish. The second exception is translation wherein editors can use AI to produce a first draft translation of content from another language, but only if they are sufficiently fluent in both languages to catch errors.
