Reddit looks to AI search as its next big opportunity

“There’s a type of query we’re, I think, 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,” said Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

Traditional search, meanwhile, is more like navigation — it’s a way to find the right link to a topic or subreddit. But LLMs can be good at this, too, if not better, he said. “So that’s the direction we’re going.”

The exec also noted that weekly active users for search over the past year grew 30% from 60 million users to 80 million users. Meanwhile, the weekly active users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers grew from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter.

“We’re seeing a lot of growth there, and I think there’s a lot of potential too,” Huffman added.

Reddit said it’s working to modernize the AI answers interface by making its responses more media-rich, and pilots of this are already underway.

The company is also thinking about how it can position itself when it’s not just a social site, but a place people come for answers. Reddit told investors on the call that it’s doing away with the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users starting in Q3 2026, as it will aim to personalize the site — using AI and machine learning — and make it relevant to whoever shows up