Reddit looks to AI search as its next big opportunity

Reddit suggested connected Thursday that its AI-powered hunt motor could beryllium the adjacent large accidental for its concern — not conscionable successful presumption of product, but arsenic a gross operator impacting its bottommost line. During the company’s fourth-quarter net telephone connected Thursday, the institution offered an update connected its plans to merge accepted and AI hunt unneurotic and hinted that though hunt is not yet monetized, “it’s an tremendous marketplace and opportunity.”

In particular, the institution believes that generative AI hunt volition beryllium “better for astir queries.”

“There’s a benignant of query we’re, I think, peculiarly bully astatine — I would argue, the champion connected the net — which is questions that person nary answers, wherever the reply really is aggregate perspectives from tons of people,” said Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

Traditional search, meanwhile, is much similar navigation — it’s a mode to find the close nexus to a taxable oregon subreddit, helium said. But LLMs tin beryllium bully astatine this too, if not better, helium said. “So that’s the absorption we’re going.”

The exec besides noted that play progressive users for hunt implicit the past twelvemonth grew 30% from 60 cardinal users to 80 cardinal users. Meanwhile, the play progressive users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers grew from 1 cardinal successful the archetypal 4th of 2025 to 15 cardinal by the 4th quarter.

“We’re seeing a batch of maturation there, and I deliberation there’s a batch of imaginable too,” Huffman added.

Reddit said it’s moving to modernize the AI answers interface by making its responses much media-rich, and pilots of this are already underway.

The institution is besides reasoning astir however it tin presumption itself erstwhile it’s not conscionable a societal site, but a spot radical travel for answers. Reddit told investors connected the telephone that it’s doing distant with the favoritism betwixt logged-in and logged-out users starting successful Q3 2026, arsenic it volition purpose to personalize the tract — utilizing AI and instrumentality learning — and marque it applicable to whomever shows up.

The institution announced successful 2025 it was planning to combine its AI hunt feature, Reddit Answers, with its accepted hunt motor to amended the acquisition for extremity users. In the 4th quarter, Reddit said it had made “significant progress” successful unifying its halfway hunt and its AI feature. It besides released 5 caller languages connected Reddit Answers and is piloting dynamic agents on with hunt results that see “media beyond text.”

Though Reddit sees worth successful its AI answers, it’s not been keeping that to itself. The company’s contented licensing business, which allows different companies to bid their AI models connected its data, is growing, too. That concern gross is reported arsenic portion of Reddit’s “other” revenues (i.e., its non-ad revenue). This “other” gross accrued by 8% year-over-year to scope $36 cardinal successful Q4, and was up 22% to scope $140 cardinal for 2025.