Reddit to launch AI-generated search summaries to boost user engagement

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman recently announced that the company is planning to test AI-generated summaries for search results during its Q2 earnings call. These summaries will be placed at the top of search pages to improve user interaction with Reddit’s vast diversity of content.

Huffman highlighted that the platform currently sees more than one billion searches monthly, and user engagement has increased by 57%. The company is now boasting 342.3 million weekly active users. The company says its AI-generated summaries are designed to offer people deeper insights into their search topics.

Reddit enhances search with AI summaries

AI summaries will provide brief but informative overviews of different subjects that were searched for on the site. This will help people engage more effectively with the large number of content available in this online community. To enable its audience to find relevant information quickly and conveniently, the social media giant intends to place these summaries at the topmost part of search pages.

While acknowledging the strength of their current search capabilities displayed by many active monthly users, Huffman said this was just another step towards making searches better for everyone. These AI summaries are designed to provide users with quick and profound content, making the search experience engaging and productive.

Reddit forms strategic AI partnerships with Google and OpenAI

To enhance its platform, the company has employed various AI tools which are being supported through strategic partnerships with major technology companies such as Google and OpenAI. A deal worth approximately $60 million per year was signed between these organizations where Google can utilize Reddit’s content to train its own Artificial Intelligence models.

Besides that, OpenAI has obtained access rights to the company’s Data API allowing them to source real-time content for products like ChatGPT. Through this collaboration, LLMs owned by OpenAI are utilized by Reddit to create novel features based on AI for the platform.

Steve Huffman has recently announced the end of free data scraping on Reddit. This move is a new obstacle for Microsoft. According to Huffman, Microsoft and many other technology firms should pay for access to the company’s data as Google and OpenAI have done so successfully.

Huffman emphasized that these agreements are essential in controlling Reddit’s data while ensuring its responsible usage. He pointed out that without such an agreement in place, there would be no way for the company to oversee how it is being presented or used which might lead to potential misuse.