Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has said that AI-powered chatbots are not the main driver of traffic on the social media platform, even though companies like OpenAI and Google have seen progress in using AI for search. During Reddit's Q3 2025 earnings call, the executive noted that Google Search and direct access continue to be key traffic drivers.
“(Chatbots) are not a traffic driver today. I think our relationships with the companies that we work for or work with directly are healthy, and we've both learned a lot over the last few years, really about the value of Reddit data and where our products can go and how we can help each other. So I'm looking forward to continuing to work on these issues with those partners. But they're not the primary traffic drivers right now,” Huffman said on the analyst call.
The analyst asked the company if 50% of its traffic came from Google and 50% directly. Huffman said the numbers are “rough, but pretty close.”
Reddit has a difficult relationship with LLM creators. The company locked its data in a new policy change in May 2024 and indicated that any type of commercial use of its data would require a license. At the same time, the company signed an agreement with OpenAI to use Reddit data to train models.
The company has it too partnership agreement with Google. On the other hand, it has started a legal battle with artificial intelligence companies such as Anthropic and Embarrassment.
Reddit reported a positive quarter with revenue of $585 million, up 68% year over year. The company also reported 116 million daily active unique users and 444 million weekly active unique users, up 20% year-over-year. The company mentioned that it has seen a 31% year-over-year increase in daily international users. It also said that over 190 million Americans visit the social networking site every week.
The company mentioned that it continues to invest in making search a central part of the experience. Huffman said the company handles 20% of its search volume through AI-powered answers and “this kind of basic search box.” He noted that in the third quarter, 75 million people searched on Reddit weekly. The company has talked about unifying AI and core search, and Huffman said that will happen in the next few quarters.
Moreover, Reddit is experimenting with a new and simpler onboarding process to increase user engagement early on.
“We want them to see in their first session that Reddit is amazing and has content for them. So our goal is to connect users with the right content very quickly,” Huffman said.
