Reddit rolls out its own AI-powered search tool after cracking down on AI companies

Reddit has spent the past six months blocking data scrapers from artificial intelligence companies that refused to pay for access to its vast content database. Now, the social media site has rolled out a new tool of its own that utilizes AI to search the site. And Reddit stock (Nasdaq: RDDT) is soaring, climbing 4% to $169 per share by mid-afternoon on Monday. 

Reddit Answers will summarize conversations and posts on the site, letting users bypass traditional search engines. The tool was released on a limited basis Monday, with more users expected to gain access in the coming days and weeks.

It’s more than just a step in Reddit’s evolution as a public company. The launch of Reddit Answers is also an escalation of the AI search wars, which could upend the way people find information online. Many of Reddit’s users, which numbered in excess of 97 million per day in the third quarter, regularly add “reddit” to their Google searches in order to find things on the platform. This tool gives them the option to bypass Google entirely.

Google, lately, has been the only place to get recent search results from Reddit, thanks to a reported $60 million deal.

To access Reddit Answers (which is still in beta), you’ll need to be in the U.S. and using a Web-based browser or iOS (an Android version is in the works). The search functionality will not work with the platform’s older interface. Only English language searches are currently supported, though the company said in a blog post that it plans to expand to additional languages and locations. You also can’t search the NSFW subreddits.

“Once a question is asked, curated summaries of relevant conversations and details across Reddit will appear, including links to related communities and posts,” the company wrote. “Redditors can easily read relevant snippets and answers inline from real redditors, jump into the full conversations, and go deeper in their search with their own or suggested follow-up questions.”

The answer summaries include hyperlinks to the reddit threads the answers were pulled from, as well as an arrow that will preview the thread. Compared to a Google search, it’s much more information-forward and lets users get to the info they want a bit faster. Like any AI-driven operation, however, the accuracy is not guaranteed—and it’s important to remember that Reddit replies are not vetted, so even if the AI accurately summarizes the data, it could still be wildly wrong, opinionated, or biased.

Reddit’s search tool is just one of many AI search options that have rolled out or are expected to soon. OpenAI announced plans to get into the search business at the end of October, launching a web search tool in its ChatGPT chatbot for paid subscribers. Apple has launched Apple Intelligence, which features a revamped Siri, which will work alongside ChatGPT. And Meta has confirmed it is working on a web search tool in its AI assistant, called Meta AI, which could offer that company some independence from Google and Bing.

Google is hardly standing still. The search leader has already incorporated AI-generated summaries of web pages into its results and has a direct line to Android users, which could give its Gemini AI tool a boost as that becomes a bigger part of search, something that is already being worked on.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, on an earnings call in October, called search “a key part of the strategy” for the company, noting that a growing number of users were primarily using Google as a tool to find what they want on Reddit.

“We’ve long had, I think, a symbiotic relationship with Google and the Google Search platform specifically,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of those users. Reddit is the sixth most searched word on Google in the U.S. this year. And so those are people literally typing the word Reddit into Google. So they know they’re going to end up on it. They’re using, in this case, Google to navigate Reddit.”

Reddit’s growth this year has been, in large part, because of Google. A search engine update from Google has driven more traffic to Reddit in recent months, which has resulted in an influx of new users. While Reddit stock has soared beyond 185% in the past six months, some investors have been concerned about the company’s reliance on Google.

While Reddit Answers is still young, the company is already eyeing it for monetization and said it saw a “big opportunity” for that. However, Huffman said Reddit doesn’t plan to rush after that money.

“First users, then the monetization, but it’s one of our top investments heading into next year,” he said. 

https://www.fastcompany.com/91243228/reddit-rolls-out-its-own-ai-powered-search-tool-after-cracking-down-on-ai-companies?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss