Reddit to unify its search experience in a bid to become a 'go-to search engine'

Reddit's search product now has 70 million weekly users while Reddit Answers has 6 million weekly users, up from 1 million last quarter

Reddit is unifying its search experience by combining its traditional search feature, Reddit search, with its conversational artificial intelligence (AI) feature, Reddit Answers, said CEO Steve Huffman.

This move comes as part of Reddit's efforts to become a 'go-to search engine', at a time when the way people engage with information is shifting and becoming more conversational, as evidenced by the growing adoption of products such as Google's AI Mode, Perplexity, and OpenAI's ChatGPT in recent years.

"Reddit is one of the few platforms positioned to become a true search destination. We offer something special, a breadth of conversations and knowledge you can't find anywhere else," Huffman said during the company's earning conference call.

He said that "every week, hundreds of millions of people come to Reddit looking for advice, and we’re turning more of that intent into active users of Reddit’s native search"

Reddit's search product now has 70 million weekly users while Reddit Answers has 6 million weekly users, up from 1 million last quarter, Huffman said.

As part of this move, Reddit is expanding Reddit Answers globally and bringing the unified search experience "front and center in the app."

"Whether you're a new user opening the app for the first time or returning user opening the app, that search box will be present immediately for users who open the app looking for something specific," Huffman said.

Launched first in December 2024, Reddit Answers allows users to ask questions and receive curated summaries of relevant conversations and details across the platform using an AI-powered conversational interface. It includes links to related communities and posts.

Reddit users, also called Redditors, will be able to read relevant snippets and answers inline from other users, open full conversations, and deepen their search with their own or suggested follow-up questions. The feature was expanded to India and several other markets in April.

Huffman said the feature is "under heavy development" at present. "We hope to get that out before too long, into the hands of users...I think it will capture both use cases of Reddit on that first screen," he said.

Improving new user onboarding 

Reddit is also sharpening its focus on improving its core product, including making onboarding more intuitive and search-forward and lowering the barriers for users to log in and contribute.

The social platform also plans to leverage AI to help users find their communities whether that's through real-time personalisation or smarter community discovery.

These developments are part of Reddit's broader push to grow its user base and drive engagement, which are essential to ramp up its advertising business.

Paid subreddits on hold

Huffman said the company is also deprioritising a few initiatives, including its work on the 'user economy.'

This includes paid subreddits, a feature that would have allowed users to create new types of communities, or subreddits, that may have "exclusive content or private areas"

"It's still an opportunity we believe in, but we're concentrating our resources on the areas that will drive results for our most pressing needs," Huffman said.

Reddit's international expansion

International expansion is also key to Reddit's advertising ambitions, for which the firm is working on real-time machine translation of its content into multiple languages across the world, particularly across Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Huffman stated that the platform currently offers machine translated content in 23 languages. This includes Indian languages such as Hindi and Bengali.

India, the world's second-largest internet market, has emerged as a key focus for Reddit's future growth strategy, both in terms of user growth and revenue. The platform's rapid user growth in the country has been a significant driver for the social platform's rising daily active users from international markets in recent quarters.

Huffman explained that machine translation is the first step of a "growth flywheel."

"Translation and marketing bring people in, localised content and app experience deepen relevancy, and scaled moderator recruitment creates stronger ecosystems. Our goal is for Reddit to be self-sustaining in these countries," he said.

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Reddit's Q2 2025 financial performance

These efforts appear to be paying off, as Reddit's advertising business surged by 84 percent year-over-year (YoY) to $465 million for the second quarter of 2025 (Q2 2025), driven by higher impressions and prices.

Reddit COO Jen Wong said on the earnings call that majority of the growth came from existing advertisers who are "deepening their investments and retaining their share of spend with us"

"We also continue to acquire new customers. Total active advertiser count expanded by over 50 percent YoY in Q2, spanning large, mid-market, and small and medium-sized businesses" Wong said.

Last month, Reddit introduced new AI-powered products such as Reddit Community Intelligence, which leverages billions of conversations on the platform to power the company's ads and insights products to help marketers drive performance and make more informed business decisions.

Conversation Summary Add-ons allows advertisers to include Reddit user discussions directly in ads, showing public opinions about products or brands.

Reddit's overall revenue jumped 78 percent year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth to $500 million in Q2 2025, marking the company's fastest quarterly growth rate since 2022.

Huffman stated that this was also the firm's most profitable quarter yet, with net income of $89 million, as compared to $10 million loss in the same quarter last year.

Reddit’s daily active users grew 21 percent to 110.4 million users, while the weekly active users rose 22 percent to 416.4 million users.