Reddit is looking beyond its role as a social platform and positioning AI-powered search as its next major growth opportunity. During its fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Steve Huffman emphasized that the integration of generative AI into Reddit’s search engine could transform both the user experience and the company’s revenue potential. While search is not yet monetized, Huffman described it as “an enormous market and opportunity” for the platform.
Huffman highlighted Reddit’s unique advantage in answering questions that have no single solution. “There’s a type of query we’re particularly good at — I would argue, the best on the internet — which is questions that have no answers, where the answer actually is multiple perspectives from lots of people,” he said. Traditional search often directs users to links or subreddits, but Reddit believes that AI can provide richer, more nuanced responses, improving results for a broader range of queries.
User engagement with Reddit’s search tools is already growing rapidly. Weekly active users for general search increased 30% in the past year, from 60 million to 80 million. Meanwhile, the AI-powered Reddit Answers saw a dramatic rise, growing from 1 million weekly active users in early 2025 to 15 million by the end of the year. The company is also enhancing Reddit Answers with more media-rich responses and experimenting with dynamic AI agents to make search results more interactive.
Looking ahead, Reddit plans to personalize its platform by removing the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users starting in Q3 2026. By leveraging AI and machine learning, the site aims to make content more relevant for every visitor, whether they are regular members or first-time users. The company has also expanded Reddit Answers into five new languages, signaling its push to make AI search accessible to a global audience.
Reddit’s AI ambitions extend beyond user engagement. Its content licensing business, which allows other companies to train AI models using Reddit’s data, continues to grow. This segment, reported under “other revenues,” reached $36 million in Q4 2025 — an 8% increase year-over-year — and $140 million for the full year, up 22% from 2024. With AI search and content licensing both showing strong growth, Reddit is clearly positioning itself as a platform where people come not just to socialize, but to find answers.
source: techcrunch