Reddit advised on Thursday that its AI-powered search engine might be the following massive alternative for its enterprise — not simply by way of product, but in addition as a income driver impacting its backside line. In the course of the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings name on Thursday, it supplied an replace on its plans to merge conventional and AI search collectively and hinted that though search isn’t but monetized, “it’s an infinite market and alternative.”
Particularly, the corporate believes that generative AI search will probably be “higher for many queries.”
“There’s a kind of question we’re, I believe, notably good at — I’d argue, the perfect on the web — which is questions that don’t have any solutions, the place the reply really is a number of views from a number of folks,” mentioned Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.
Conventional search, in the meantime, is extra like navigation — it’s a option to discover the best hyperlink to a subject or subreddit. However LLMs could be good at this, too, if not higher, he mentioned. “In order that’s the path we’re going.”
The exec additionally famous that weekly energetic customers for search over the previous yr grew 30% from 60 million customers to 80 million customers. In the meantime, the weekly energetic customers for the AI-powered Reddit Solutions grew from 1 million within the first quarter of 2025 to fifteen million by the fourth quarter.
“We’re seeing numerous development there, and I believe there’s numerous potential too,” Huffman added.
Reddit mentioned it’s working to modernize the AI solutions interface by making its responses extra media-rich, and pilots of this are already underway.
The corporate can also be desirous about the way it can place itself when it’s not only a social web site, however a spot folks come for solutions. Reddit informed buyers on the decision that it’s casting off the excellence between logged-in and logged-out customers beginning in Q3 2026, as it is going to intention to personalize the location — utilizing AI and machine studying — and make it related to whoever reveals up.
The corporate introduced in 2025 it was planning to combine its AI search characteristic, Reddit Answers, with its conventional search engine to enhance the expertise for finish customers. Within the fourth quarter, Reddit mentioned it had made “vital progress” in unifying its core search and its AI characteristic. It additionally launched 5 new languages on Reddit Solutions and is piloting dynamic brokers together with search outcomes that embrace “media past textual content.”
Although Reddit sees worth in its AI solutions, it’s not been retaining that to itself. The corporate’s content material licensing enterprise, which permits different firms to coach their AI fashions on its information, is rising, too. That enterprise income is reported as a part of Reddit’s “different” revenues (i.e., its non-ad income). This “different” income elevated by 8% year-over-year to succeed in $36 million in This autumn and was up 22% to succeed in $140 million for 2025.
Trending Merchandise
