Reddit begins testing AI-powered answers feature to win more users

• Reddit is rolling out a new artificial intelligence feature designed to help people quickly find answers based on user posts, the company said Monday.
• Reddit Answers, as the feature is called, allows users to ask questions just like they can with ChatGPT, Perplexity and other generative AI services. 
• With Reddit Answers, the company may be able to get more users to search for Reddit content on the platform, reducing the company’s reliance on Google for traffic.

Reddit is rolling out a new artificial intelligence feature designed to help people quickly find answers based on user posts, the company said Monday.

A small portion of Reddit’s U.S. user base will have access to the Reddit Answers feature as part of an initial test before the company rolls the feature out more broadly. 

Reddit Answers is available via a new button on the company’s homepage. That button takes users to a page where they can ask the AI questions, just as they can with ChatGPT, Perplexity and other generative AI services. 

Unlike other AI-powered chat and search tools, Reddit’s AI-generated answers are sourced from posts found on the platform, not from around the web.

For instance, if a user asks Reddit Answers how to make modifications to a particular BMW model, the AI tool will answer with a bullet-point list of tips, summaries and quotes from Reddit posts related to the question. Users can tap links in the answers and go directly to the related Reddit post.

The company has been testing Reddit Answers for six months, and the feature is part of Reddit’s plans to improve the way people search on the platform, Reddit Vice President of Product Serkan Piantino told CNBC.

Reddit Answers is more “about building a bridge to the content than it is about being a replacement for it,” said Piantino. He said the company wants people to use the feature to access more Reddit content as opposed to merely reading AI-generated summaries.

People will be able to use Reddit Answers to query any topic except those deemed NSFW, or not safe for work, Piantino said.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told analysts in October that search represents a “focused investment” for the company in 2025 due to its utility and how it “helps new users find their home on Reddit.”

“It helps core users navigate Reddit, answer their questions, and it’s a monetization opportunity,” Huffman said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “It’s one of the few products that kind of touches everything.”

Reddit Answers is built atop the company’s existing search architecture and with AI models from OpenAI and Google Cloud, Piantino said. The social media company has data-licensing deals with both OpenAI and Google in which the companies pay Reddit for access to its data that they can use to improve their respective AI models.

Over the past year, Reddit has become one of the most visited sites through Google, after the company made internal changes and after Google updated its algorithms to prioritize “authentic” content from online forums. As a result, Reddit said, it has seen an influx of new users who aren’t logged into accounts on the platform.

Although Reddit’s overall user base has grown along with its improved Google search results, the number of logged-out users has exceeded that of logged-in users since the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Reddit financials. Reddit isn’t able to monetize logged-out users as much as their logged-in counterparts, which has led to the company releasing more personalized features intended to incentivize logged-out users to create accounts. 

“Reddit is the sixth most searched word on Google in the US this year, and so, those are people literally typing the word Reddit into Google,” Huffman said in October. “They know they’re going to end up on there. They’re using, in this case, Google to navigate Reddit.”

With Reddit Answers, the company may be able to get more users to search for Reddit content on the platform, reducing the company’s reliance on Google for traffic. If new users find the feature compelling, they could be enticed to create accounts.

“It’s pretty clear that AI has a place in search, and that’s how we’re thinking about this as well,” Piantino said.

Reddit Answers is only available in English for iOS and desktop users for now, but the company plans to roll out the feature to Android users as well as in other languages in the future, Piantino said.

Watch: Reddit is a place advertisers need to be, says CEO Steve Huffman