Reddit develops its own AI search and challenges Google

After Reddit in the second quarter of 2025 earned $500 million (78% more than a year earlier), increased net income to 89 million and brought the daily audience to 110 million people, the company decided: enough to be an application to Google - it's time to become a search engine itself.

Here's What We Know

Audience growth came from both the US (+11%) and international markets (+32%), fuelled by the introduction of machine translation in 23 languages. It's all part of a massive course to transform Reddit from a platform for socialising to a full-fledged search engine with AI elements.

CEO Steve Huffman bluntly stated: the company is "focusing resources" on creating a search engine that will be accessed first. And Reddit has grounds for ambition. More than 70 million users actively use the in-built search every week. Launched in December, AI tool Reddit Answers has already racked up 6 million users per week (compared to just 1 million in the first quarter).

It's not just an experience. Reddit is expanding the Reddit Answers experience globally, integrating it deeper into core search, and wants to make search the centrepiece of the entire platform.

Why all this is happening.

Google is slowly taking queries for itself - there are more and more AI answers instead of classic links. But users have long been getting round this by adding the word Reddit to their search queries to get the opinions of humans rather than bots. And it's this traffic that Reddit is trying to pull completely to itself - by building its own search and no longer depending on the whims of Google.

Reddit recently turned 20 years old - and judging by its ambitions, the old boy has decided not to give up and get into the AI-giant fight. While Google and other bots compete for speed of response, Reddit is banking on experience and live discussion.

Source: The Verge