Reddit, a social media giant known for its expansive community-driven platform, is testing AI-powered search results pages designed to summarize and recommend content across various Reddit communities. This initiative marks a significant step towards improving user navigation and engagement on the platform. The company has begun recruiting engineers to form a “small search team” that will develop these capabilities further. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced plans to launch this upgraded search experience within the year, aiming to drive growth, increase retention, and ultimately boost revenue.
Integration of Reddit Answers for Enhanced Search Experience
The new AI-powered search will integrate Reddit Answers, which allows users to ask questions and receive curated summaries from relevant responses and threads. The enhanced search experience aims to address “subjective, hard, and interesting questions,” making it a vital tool for users exploring diverse topics on Reddit. Huffman also mentioned the possibility of incorporating search into the platform’s onboarding process, hinting at a more seamless user journey.
Despite Reddit’s ambitious plans, the company faces challenges. During the Q4 2024 earnings call, held on Wednesday, CFO Drew Vollero noted that the daily active unique users on Reddit increased 39% year-over-year to 101.7 million. However, this figure fell short of investors’ expectations of 103.1 million. Investors expressed disappointment in the fiscal Q4 metrics, which were partly affected by changes to Google’s search algorithm.
Huffman remains optimistic about the potential of these new features, stating:
“I think helping the user be able to search directly on Reddit, refine their queries on Reddit, eventually come directly to Reddit for those types of queries, and even integrating search into something like onboarding over time — I think [these are] really interesting things.” – Steve Huffman
Last year, Reddit introduced AI-powered translation to several new territories and rolled out AI-powered insights for brands. The company plans to expand these capabilities further in 2023, enhancing its global reach and brand offerings.
Author’s Opinion
Reddit’s move to integrate AI into its search functionality is a promising development that could significantly enhance user experience and platform engagement. By making content more easily discoverable and adding features like curated summaries through Reddit Answers, the platform has the potential to create a more seamless and rewarding user experience. However, Reddit will need to carefully balance the excitement around new AI features with the practicalities of implementation, especially given its struggles with growth in daily active users. The ambitious expansion of AI capabilities should ideally result in not only user growth but also a refined, personalized journey that could boost retention and revenue in the long run.
