Reddit is planning for an AI future: The social platform plans to add AI-capability to its site-wide search functions later this year, according to its CEO.
CEO Steve Huffman just mentioned the news in the company’s latest earnings call, saying they’d be testing the tools, which are designed to “summarize and recommend content.” Reddit will also be experimenting with paywalled subreddits as a new revenue stream, Huffman mentioned in the same call.
AI hype has been sweeping the tech community for years now. Despite some signs that the bubble may be deflating, the tech’s impact will certainly continue to be felt for the foreseeable future.
What Changes Does Reddit Have Planned?
The new AI-powered search result summaries are the biggest upcoming change that was announced in the recent earnings call, according to a report from Engadget, which notes that this is just the second such call since Reddit became a publicly traded company in March 2024.
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“Later this year, we will begin testing new search result pages powered by AI to summarize and recommend content, helping users dive deeper into products, shows, games and discover new communities on Reddit.” -Huffman
There’s no word on when these tests will start or how quickly the tools might be coming to the average Reddit user, although Huffman did say that they’ll use first-party and third-party models. The hope is that ads can be run alongside search results within the Reddit platform, giving the company’s advertising revenue a shot in the arm.
Non-advertising revenue boosts are being explored as well, with paywalled subreddits at the top of the list.
“I think the existing, altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it has. But now we will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive content or private areas, things of that nature.” -Huffman
Reddit’s Been Making a Lot of Changes
As one of the biggest social platforms around, Reddit has a great legacy when it comes to search engines: Plenty of internet users have started adding “reddit” to the end of their Google searches, simply to ensure that they receive the credible responses that they need in the wake of unpopular tweaks to the Google algorithm.
Ironically, some of those algorithm tweaks are themselves AI-powered tools that sound fairly similar to the summary-generators that Reddit plans to debut.
The company previously announced plans to sell user data to Google for use in training AI models, and saw some growing pains last year when some users protested its API changes.
What do Reddit users themselves think of the changes Reddit leadership is adapting in the wake of its recent IPO? Their thoughts might be best summed up by the top comment on a thread, posted earlier this year, that asks the question “Why does Reddit want to become a public company?” The comment simply reads: “$.”
AI Upskilling May Be the Future of Work
AI tools are everywhere, whether you want them or not. It remains to be seen whether Reddit’s big bet on AI summaries will pay off with increased engagement and boosted value, but another group of interested parties can already see the benefits of figuring out AI tools.
Workers everywhere are rushing to upskill their ability to understand and use AI in order to secure their job positions and aim for the next rung up on their career ladders.
According to a new report out a little over a week ago from the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium, an impressive 92% of all jobs in information and communication technology fields will experience “high or moderate transformation” due to AI.
Top areas in which employees will need to upskill? AI literacy, AI preparedness, data analytics, and prompt engineering. The good news is that you can find plenty of free online courses to help you handle all of those areas of improvement. We’ve rounded up the best ones to help you start — unless, of course, you’d prefer to wait until Reddit has an AI summary tool up and running to help you instead.
