Maisie Lloyd
I'm passionate about recording the world, but most of all driven by creativity and collaborative environments. My experience revolves around the production of digital content, pertaining to graphic design, writing copy, and video and audio content.
Reddit’s announcement
In Reddit’s Q2 earnings call, Steve Huffman (CEO) revealed Reddit would be testing AI-powered search results.
Reddit is a social platform which often doubles as a community-made search engine.
Here’s what Huffman had to say, “Later this year, we will begin testing new search result pages powered by AI to summarize and recommend content.”
What we know so far
Though there are no details or release dates given on the potential feature, we do know it will be used to suggest content and create summaries. This will likely be similar to the Google AI overviews, which was brought to users in May 2024.
The feature will give Reddit a competitive edge over other social platforms, as most others still offer nothing close to this. Similarly, the wealth of unique user-generated content Reddit has access to will allow for richer, contextualised search experiences.
We can assume after the successful release of its AI translate feature, this too will increase revenue and traffic for Reddit. Reddit’s mutually beneficial partnership with OpenAI is paying off. We can assume that with the help of OpenAI, the feature will be created.
Reddit’s recent block on search engines
The announcement comes just weeks after Reddit blocked major search engines like Bing from trawling its site. We have to question if the potential AI search result feature was a factor in deciding to block sites from collecting data freely. Retrospectively, the decision made by Reddit could have positive impacts on the overall quality and uniqueness of the features results.
Now Reddit urges Microsoft and other companies to buy the data, after forging successful and profitable partnerships with OpenAI and Google.
What was said in the Q2 earnings call?
During the call, Huffman reported in the second quarter, Reddit have seen a 54% increase revenue growth year over year. Indicative that advertisers are putting more spend into displaying ads on the platform. Conversely, users may also be investing in premium accounts to mitigate the disruption in browsing with an increase in adverts.
An incredible $281.2 million was earned in Q2, up an impressive 40 million from the first quarter with just $243 million earned. No set figure surrounding user growth was revealed, though it was noted that there has been an increase within the last quarter.
We’ll be keeping an eye out to see if the blocking of search engines drives the revenue further, as more opt for purchasing data.
We’d be interested to know if you will be using the feature on its release.
