Reddit is betting on AI search to navigate vast trove of data

If there’s anything Reddit is famous for outside of daily memes, easy news and activism — it is the very fact it is all pedal-driven. As in it is full of human connections, giving tonnes of answers to questions ranging from the trivial to the weird.

The company grew its revenue by 78% year-over-year this quarter, and now has a plan to drive even more traffic to its services; AI.

Most cited on AI chatbots
That is, after entering licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, being a classic add-on to Google searches (just add Reddit and you get a human response), they are now doubling down on their own AI search.

They already claim to be the most cited website on AI queries, more than twice as much as the runner up — and that must mean their licensing strategy is holding up nicely

Rolling their own AI search
The next priority for Reddit is Reddit Answers, a little known, but fast growing feature using AI to lead discovery.

It will direct you through shopping queries, like finding the best suitcase for carry-ons, to finding the perfect subreddit for you.

It will also give you the uniquely human perspectives that Reddit is known for.

From zero to 6 million users
From its inception in December 2024, the conversational AI search has grown to almost 6 million users per week, growing almost 10x from the last quarter.

It is only available in the USA, UK and other English speaking markets.

Looking forward, Reddit is «expanding Reddit Answers globally, adding support for new languages and deeper platform integration,» their quarterly report says.

Placing right in the conversation
That means, among other things, to put right on the conversation page to drive «more adoption and engagement» and put it in front of more people.

The result should be Reddit is going to make a big bet on making AI search more visible right on the most valuable pages of the site — and it will be hard to escape the «Related Answers» they are going to be putting in there.

This will make «search a central feature across Reddit,» CEO Steve Huffman says in the report.

That might irritate some users, as the Reddit community is not known to be very endeared to AI — but Reddit is betting lots of people find it useful,

Read more: Reddit’s Q2, 2025 report, the introduction of Reddit Answers, writeup from The Verge