Reddit is betting that AI-powered search can become a core part of its business. During its fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, the company said weekly users of Reddit Answers — its conversational AI search product — jumped from 1 million to 15 million over the past nine months, while traditional Reddit search now reaches about 80 million weekly users. The feature remains unmonetized, but executives framed it as a major long-term growth opportunity as Reddit works to merge AI-driven answers with its existing search experience.
Reddit Answers, which launched in late 2024, is designed to surface synthesized responses drawn from Reddit’s vast archive of community discussions. CEO Steve Huffman said the product is particularly strong at handling subjective or open-ended questions — the kinds of queries where multiple perspectives matter more than a single definitive answer. Those are the same questions that have increasingly driven users to append “reddit” to Google searches, a behavior Huffman highlighted as central to Reddit’s search strategy.
The company is now trying to formalize that behavior inside its own platform. Rather than positioning search as a simple navigation tool, Reddit wants AI to turn its forums into a destination for answers, using large language models to organize and summarize conversations across subreddits. Huffman said Reddit is working toward a unified search experience that blends traditional keyword search with AI-generated responses, which he believes will outperform existing approaches for many queries.
So far, the growth numbers suggest meaningful user interest. Reddit said traditional search usage grew about 30% year over year, while Reddit Answers expanded rapidly as it rolled out in additional countries and added five new languages in the fourth quarter. The company is also experimenting with richer responses, including more media and early versions of “dynamic agents” that can adapt answers based on context.
What Reddit is not yet doing is making money from search. Huffman repeatedly emphasized the size of the opportunity without committing to a monetization timeline. That caution reflects the challenge Reddit faces: search advertising typically works best when users show clear commercial intent, while Reddit’s strength lies in discussion, exploration, and community-driven insight. Turning those moments into predictable ad inventory will require a different approach than the keyword-based advertising that underpins Google’s search business.
At the same time, Reddit is already monetizing its content in another way. The company’s data licensing business — which sells access to Reddit conversations for AI training — generated $36 million in the fourth quarter and $140 million over the full year, according to the earnings release. That revenue stream gives Reddit exposure to the AI boom even as it experiments with building its own AI-driven products.
Reddit is also planning changes that could expand the reach of its AI tools. Starting in the second half of 2026, the company aims to blur the line between logged-in and logged-out users by using AI and machine learning to personalize content for visitors who land on Reddit through search or direct links. The goal is to convert casual readers into more engaged users, increasing time spent on the platform and, eventually, monetization potential.
The strategy puts Reddit in the middle of a fast-moving search landscape. Google is integrating Reddit content more prominently into its own results, while AI-native products like Perplexity are racing to redefine how people find information. Reddit’s advantage is that it controls both the content and the interface, allowing it to experiment with how AI surfaces community knowledge without relying on third-party platforms.
Whether that advantage translates into durable revenue remains an open question. Reddit’s community has historically been sensitive to advertising and commercialization, and executives will need to balance monetization against preserving the authenticity that makes the platform valuable in the first place. For now, the company is focused on growing usage and refining the product, betting that if AI search becomes indispensable to how people use Reddit, the business model will follow.
This analysis is based on reporting from techbuzz.
Image courtesy of Unsplash.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
