Reddit Ceo Says Chatbots Are Not A Traffic Driver

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said AI chatbots aren’t a awesome postulation driver for nan societal level contempt companies for illustration OpenAI and Google having seen advancement successful group utilizing AI for search. During Reddit’s Q3 2025 call, nan exec noted that Google hunt and nonstop entree proceed to beryllium its apical postulation drivers.

“[Chatbots are] not a postulation driver today. I deliberation our relationships pinch nan companies that we activity for — aliases activity pinch straight are healthy, and we some learned a batch complete nan past mates of years, really nan worth of Reddit’s information and wherever our respective products tin spell and really we tin thief each other. So I’m looking guardant to continuing to activity connected these things pinch these partners. But they’re not a awesome postulation driver today,” Huffman said during nan telephone pinch analysts.

An expert asked nan institution if 50% of nan postulation comes from Google and 50% direct, Huffman said that those numbers are “approximate, but beautiful close.”

Reddit has had a tricky narration pinch LLM builders. The institution locked down its information done a caller argumentation alteration successful May 2024 and indicated that immoderate benignant of commercialized usage of its information would request a license. At nan aforesaid time, nan institution signed a woody pinch OpenAI to fto it usage Reddit information for exemplary training.

The institution besides has a business statement pinch Google. On nan different hand, nan institution has ensued a ineligible conflict pinch AI companies for illustration Anthropic and Perplexity.

Reddit reported a affirmative 4th pinch $585 cardinal successful revenue, up 68% year-on-year. The institution besides clocked successful 116 cardinal regular progressive unsocial users and 444 cardinal play progressive unsocial users, pinch 20% maturation year-over-year. The institution mentioned it recorded 31% year-on-year maturation successful world regular users. It besides said that much than 190 cardinal Americans sojourn nan societal web each week.

The institution mentioned that it continues to put successful making nan hunt acquisition a cardinal portion of nan experience. Huffman said that nan institution is handling 20% of hunt volumes done its AI-powered Answers and “that benignant of halfway hunt box.” He noted that successful Q3, 75 cardinal group searched play connected Reddit. The institution has been talking astir unifying AI and nan halfway hunt experience, and Huffman said it is coming successful nan adjacent fewer quarters.

What’s more, Reddit is experimenting pinch a caller and simpler onboarding travel to summation early personification engagement.

“We want them to spot successful their first convention that Reddit is astonishing and has contented for them. So our extremity is to link users pinch applicable contented very quickly,” Huffman said.