Reddit desires to be your new search engine

Reddit, like practically each main tech firm proper now, goes all-in on AI, and its subsequent large wager is reworking itself right into a full-blown search engine.

That’s straight from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. In accordance with TechCrunch, Huffman instructed traders in the course of the firm’s newest earnings name on Thursday: “Reddit is without doubt one of the few platforms positioned to grow to be a real search vacation spot. We provide one thing particular — a breadth of conversations and information you possibly can’t discover wherever else.”

He’s not flawed. For years, web customers have added “reddit” to the top of their Google searches to filter previous web optimization sludge and discover actual human solutions. The behavior grew to become so widespread that Google finally baked Reddit content material straight into its search outcomes.

However Reddit doesn’t wish to be drowned out by Google’s AI search push — it desires to be the reply. Like Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft, the corporate is specializing in “its personal” AI-driven search expertise. That effort facilities across the web site’s search perform and Reddit Solutions, an AI-assisted instrument that’s powered by Gemini AI, in line with Google.

Reddit Solutions, which now serves 6 million customers and is being examined in a dozen nations, features very similar to ChatGPT, providing conversational, in-depth responses to person queries by pulling from the platform’s large archive of discussions. As a substitute of merely returning hyperlinks or posts, it goals to synthesize solutions in a extra pure, AI-driven format.

The corporate plans to mix Reddit Solutions with its core search perform and redesign the app so the search bar takes middle stage. In accordance with Huffman, world growth is on the best way.

“We’re unifying these [Reddit Search and Reddit Answers] right into a single search expertise, and we’re gonna deliver that entrance and middle within the app,” Huffman stated within the name.

It’s all a part of Reddit’s broader push to consolidate its person base and maintain individuals on the platform, whereas additionally turning a strong revenue. In Q2, the corporate reported an enormous 78 p.c income leap year-over-year, pulling in $500 million.