The chatbot aims to streamline access to over 1 billion posts and discussions by offering recommendations, retrieving information, and highlighting relevant forum threads.
Reddit has been pushing to upgrade its search tools and compete with traditional search engines and AI platforms that summarize web content. Many users already turn to search engines like Google to find Reddit discussions, often appending “Reddit” to their queries. In 2024, “Reddit” ranked as the sixth-most searched term on Google in the US.
To address the rise of external AI tools summarizing its content without driving traffic to its site, Reddit has restricted some search engines from accessing its forums without commercial agreements. It has already secured licensing deals with OpenAI and Google worth US$203 million over the next few years, allowing its content to feature in search results and tools like ChatGPT.
Reddit Answers is powered by AI models developed in collaboration with OpenAI and Google, following a trend among social platforms integrating AI chatbots to keep users engaged. Meta’s Meta AI chatbot, integrated into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, already serves 600 million monthly users, while platforms like X and Snapchat have launched similar features.
Initially available to select users in the US on web and iOS, Reddit Answers will eventually expand to other languages and regions.
