Reddit needs to be a ‘go-to search engine,’ Steve Huffman says

Reddit goes to be leaning even more durable into search within the coming months. The corporate has already been engaged on a plan to combine its LLM-powered search into its foremost search function, however CEO Steve Huffman mentioned he needs customers to think about the location as an precise search engine.

Through the firm’s newest earnings name, Huffman mentioned search is without doubt one of the prime priorities for Reddit. “We’re concentrating our assets on the areas that can drive outcomes for our most urgent wants, enhancing the core product, making Reddit a go-to search engine, and increasing internationally.”

The concept of reddit as a search engine is not that far-fetched. Many individuals are already within the behavior of including “Reddit” to conventional searches within the hopes of discovering related threads from the location. And the corporate has been making an attempt to make the most of this with its personal AI-powered search product . Although that function remains to be labeled as being in “beta,” the corporate plans to ultimately add it to its default search bar.

“Our focus proper now’s on unifying the Reddit search, like conventional search on Reddit, which may be very broadly used on Reddit, and the brand new Reddit solutions product … we’re unifying these right into a single search expertise, and we’ll convey that entrance and heart within the app,” Huffman mentioned.

Huffman’s feedback come at a time when AI is more and more for web sites. It seems like even Reddit, which has a multimillion-dollar information licensing , is not immune from these tendencies both. Through the name, Huffman mentioned that Reddit’s search visitors from Google “varies week to week,” however that general “it was a headwind” over the last quarter.

Which will assist clarify why Huffman is so desperate to make Reddit itself a search vacation spot, at the same time as the corporate continues to license its information to AI corporations. “AI does not invent data,” he mentioned. “It learns from us; from actual folks, sharing actual views.”