Reddit steered on Thursday that its AI-powered search engine could possibly be the subsequent massive alternative for its enterprise — not simply by way of product, but additionally as a income driver impacting its backside line. In the course of the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings name on Thursday, it provided an replace on its plans to merge conventional and AI search collectively and hinted that though search just isn’t but monetized, “it’s an unlimited market and alternative.”
Particularly, the corporate believes that generative AI search can be “higher for many queries.”
“There’s a sort of question we’re, I believe, notably good at — I’d argue, one of the best on the web — which is questions that haven’t any solutions, the place the reply truly is a number of views from plenty of individuals,” stated Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.
Conventional search, in the meantime, is extra like navigation — it’s a solution to discover the appropriate hyperlink to a subject or subreddit. However LLMs could be good at this, too, if not higher, he stated. “In order that’s the path we’re going.”
The exec additionally famous that weekly lively customers for search over the previous 12 months grew 30% from 60 million customers to 80 million customers. In the meantime, the weekly lively 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 stated 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 enthusiastic about the way it can place itself when it’s not only a social website, however a spot individuals come for solutions. Reddit informed buyers on the decision that it’s getting rid of the excellence between logged-in and logged-out customers beginning in Q3 2026, as it would purpose to personalize the positioning — utilizing AI and machine studying — and make it related to whoever reveals up.
The corporate introduced in 2025 it was planning to mix its AI search characteristic, Reddit Solutions, with its conventional search engine to enhance the expertise for finish customers. Within the fourth quarter, Reddit stated it had made “important 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 embody “media past textual content.”
Although Reddit sees worth in its AI solutions, it’s not been preserving that to itself. The corporate’s content material licensing enterprise, which permits different firms to coach their AI fashions on its knowledge, 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.
