On Thursday, Reddit indicated that its AI-driven search engine represents a major upcoming business opportunity, not only as a product but as a significant future revenue source. During the fourth-quarter earnings call, the company shared an update on its efforts to blend traditional and AI-powered search, noting that while search is not currently monetized, it views the space as "an enormous market and opportunity."

The company specifically expressed confidence that generative AI search will prove "better for most queries." Reddit CEO Steve Huffman explained, "There’s a type of query we’re, I think, particularly good at - I would argue, the best on the internet - which is questions that have no answers, where the answer actually is multiple perspectives from lots of people." He contrasted this with traditional search, which he described as more like navigation—a way to find the right link to a topic or subreddit. Huffman added that large language models can also excel at this type of search, possibly even outperforming traditional methods. "So that’s the direction we’re going," he stated.

Huffman also provided user metrics, revealing that weekly active users for search grew 30% over the past year, from 60 million to 80 million. Meanwhile, weekly active users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers feature surged from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter. "We’re seeing a lot of growth there, and I think there’s a lot of potential too," he remarked.

Reddit is currently working to enhance the AI answers interface by making responses more media-rich, with pilots already in progress. The company is also considering how to position itself not just as a social platform, but as a destination for answers.

During the call, Reddit informed investors that it will eliminate the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users starting in the third quarter of 2026. The goal is to personalize the site using AI and machine learning, making it relevant to every visitor.

The company had announced in 2025 its plan to merge its AI search feature, Reddit Answers, with its traditional search engine to improve the user experience. By the fourth quarter, Reddit reported "significant progress" in unifying core search with its AI feature. It also expanded Reddit Answers to five new languages and is piloting dynamic agents alongside search results that incorporate "media beyond text."

While Reddit is investing in its own AI answers, it is also sharing access to its data. The company’s content licensing business, which allows other firms to train their AI models on Reddit data, is growing as well. This revenue is categorized under Reddit’s "other" revenues, which excludes advertising. In the fourth quarter, "other" revenue increased by 8% year-over-year to $36 million, and for the full year 2025, it rose 22% to $140 million.