Reddit looks to AI search as its next big opportunity

Reddit indicated on Thursday that its AI-driven search capabilities could become the company’s next major growth engine — not only as a product enhancement, but also as a meaningful future revenue stream. During its fourth-quarter earnings call, Reddit executives shared updates on plans to blend traditional search with AI-powered search, noting that while search has not yet been monetised, “it’s an enormous market and opportunity.”

The company said it believes generative AI search will ultimately be “better for most queries.”

“There’s a type of question that we’re firm at — I’d argue the best on the internet — which is questions that don’t have a single right answer, where the real value comes from multiple perspectives shared by many people,” said Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

Huffman contrasted this with traditional search, which he described as more navigational in nature —focused on helping users find the right page or subreddit. However, he said large language models can perform this function just as well, if not better. “So that’s the direction we’re going,” he added.

The executive also pointed to strong growth in Reddit’s search usage. Over the past year, weekly active users engaging with search increased by 30%, from 60 million to 80 million. At the same time, weekly active users of the company’s AI-powered search product, Reddit Answers, grew sharply — from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter.

“We’re seeing a lot of momentum there, and I think there’s significant upside as well,” Huffman said.

Reddit noted that it is actively working to modernise the Reddit Answers experience by making responses richer in media, and that pilot versions of these updates are already being tested.

The company is also rethinking its broader positioning, moving beyond being a social platform to a destination where people come specifically for answers. During the earnings call, Reddit told investors that it plans to eliminate the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users beginning in the third quarter of 2026. The goal is to personalise the site for every visitor using AI and machine learning, ensuring relevance regardless of whether a user has an account.

Back in 2025, Reddit announced plans to merge its AI search feature, Reddit Answers, with its traditional search engine to improve the overall user experience. In the fourth quarter, the company reported “significant progress” toward unifying core search with its AI-powered tools. Reddit also launched support for five additional languages on Reddit Answers and began piloting dynamic AI agents alongside search results that include “media beyond text.”

While Reddit is increasingly focused on the value of AI-generated answers on its own platform, it is also monetising that value externally. The company’s content licensing business — which enables other organisations to train AI models on Reddit data — continues to expand. Revenue from this segment is included in Reddit’s “other” revenue category, separate from advertising. That category rose 8% year over year to $36 million in the fourth quarter and increased 22% for the whole year, reaching $140 million in 2025.