Reddit CEO says chatbots are not a traffic driver

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated AI chatbots aren’t a serious visitors driver for the social platform regardless of firms like OpenAI and Google having seen progress in folks utilizing AI for search. Throughout Reddit’s Q3 2025 name, the exec famous that Google search and direct entry proceed to be its high visitors drivers.

“[Chatbots are] not a visitors driver at the moment. I believe {our relationships} with the businesses that we work for — or work with straight are wholesome, and we each realized quite a bit over the past couple of years, actually the worth of Reddit’s knowledge and the place our respective merchandise can go and the way we will help one another. So I’m wanting ahead to persevering with to work on this stuff with these companions. However they’re not a serious visitors driver at the moment,” Huffman stated in the course of the name with analysts.

An analyst requested the corporate if 50% of the visitors comes from Google and 50% direct, Huffman stated that these numbers are “approximate, however fairly shut.”

Reddit has had a difficult relationship with LLM builders. The corporate locked down its data through a new policy change in May 2024 and indicated that any sort of industrial use of its knowledge would want a license. On the identical time, the corporate signed a deal with OpenAI to let it use Reddit knowledge for mannequin coaching.

The corporate additionally has a partnership agreement with Google. Alternatively, the corporate has ensued a authorized battle with AI firms like Anthropic and Perplexity.

Reddit reported a constructive quarter with $585 million in income, up 68% year-on-year. The corporate additionally clocked in 116 million every day energetic distinctive customers and 444 million weekly energetic distinctive customers, with 20% development year-over-year. The corporate talked about it recorded 31% year-on-year development in worldwide every day customers. It additionally stated that greater than 190 million People go to the social community each week.

The corporate talked about that it continues to put money into making the search expertise a central a part of the expertise. Huffman stated that the corporate is dealing with 20% of search volumes by way of its AI-powered Solutions and “that sort of core search field.” He famous that in Q3, 75 million folks searched weekly on Reddit. The corporate has been speaking about unifying AI and the core search experience, and Huffman stated it’s coming within the subsequent few quarters.

What’s extra, Reddit is experimenting with a brand new and less complicated onboarding stream to extend early person engagement.

“We wish them to see of their first session that Reddit is superb and has content material for them. So our objective is to attach customers with related content material in a short time,” Huffman stated.