Reddit Should Be A 'go-to Search Engine,' Steve Huffman Says

Reddit is going to beryllium leaning moreover harder into hunt successful nan coming months. The institution has already been moving connected a scheme to merge its LLM-powered hunt into its main hunt feature, but CEO Steve Huffman said he wants users to deliberation of nan tract arsenic an existent hunt engine.

During nan company's latest net call, Huffman said hunt is 1 of nan apical priorities for Reddit. "We're concentrating our resources connected nan areas that will thrust results for our astir pressing needs, improving nan halfway product, making Reddit a go-to hunt engine, and expanding internationally."

The thought of reddit arsenic a hunt motor isn't that far-fetched. Many group are already successful nan wont of adding "Reddit" to accepted searches successful nan hopes of uncovering applicable threads from nan site. And nan institution has been trying to return advantage of this pinch its ain AI-powered hunt merchandise Reddit Answers. Though that characteristic is still branded arsenic being successful "beta," nan institution plans to yet adhd it to its default hunt bar.

"Our attraction correct now is connected unifying nan Reddit search, for illustration accepted hunt connected Reddit, which is very wide utilized connected Reddit, and nan caller Reddit answers merchandise ... we're unifying those into a azygous hunt experience, and we're going to bring that beforehand and halfway successful nan app," Huffman said.

Huffman's comments travel astatine a clip erstwhile AI is progressively eating hunt traffic for websites. It sounds for illustration moreover Reddit, which has a multimillion-dollar information licensing deal pinch Google, isn't immune from those trends either. During nan call, Huffman said that Reddit's hunt postulation from Google "varies week to week," but that wide "it was a headwind" during nan past quarter.

That whitethorn thief explicate why Huffman is truthful eager to make Reddit itself a hunt destination, moreover arsenic nan institution continues to licence its information to AI companies. "AI doesn't invent knowledge," he said. "It learns from us; from existent people, sharing existent perspectives."