Reddit is launching AI-powered search

Appending “Reddit” to all your Google searches may soon be a thing of the past. In an effort to help users more easily find information on the platform, Reddit is launching a new AI-powered search tool called Reddit Answers.

The feature is built on top of the company’s existing search architecture, and also integrates AI models from OpenAI and Google Cloud, a company executive told CNBC.

• Similar to other AI search products, Reddit Answers responds to queries with a conversational tone, generating formatted responses and including links to its sources.
• But, unlike other such tools, Reddit’s AI-generated answers are sourced exclusively from posts found on the platform, not from around the web.

It’s part of Reddit’s push for more users to login

The social media platform has become one of the most visited sites through Google over the past year, after Reddit made internal changes and Google updated its search algorithms to prioritize content from online forums. “Reddit” is currently the sixth most-searched word on Google, per Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

• As a result, the social media site has seen an influx of new users who aren’t logged into an account, with internal data showing this population has outnumbered logged-in users since Q4 of last year.
• And since Reddit isn’t able to monetize logged-out users as much as those who log in, the company is focused on creating personalized features, like Reddit Answers, to incentivize logged-out users to create accounts.

🚫 At the same time… Reddit has been cracking down on AI companies’ access to its library of billions of user posts (added at a rate of ~1.2 million/day). Currently, OpenAI and Google are the only two major companies to sign licensing agreements allowing their AI products to surface information from Reddit.