The Reality Check on AI Search
In a candid revelation that cuts through the AI hype cycle, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told analysts during the company’s Q3 2025 earnings call that AI chatbots are not driving meaningful traffic to the platform. Despite the surge in AI-powered search tools from OpenAI, Google, and others, the traditional pathways—Google search and direct visits—continue to dominate Reddit’s traffic sources.
“[Chatbots are] not a traffic driver today,” Huffman stated plainly. When asked about the traffic split, he confirmed that approximately 50% comes from Google search and 50% from direct access.
The Gap Between Hype and Reality
Huffman’s comments underscore a significant disconnect between the enthusiasm surrounding conversational AI search and the actual flow of web traffic. While companies like OpenAI and Google have made considerable progress in getting people to use AI for search queries, these tools appear to be functioning more as answer providers than traffic generators.
The implication is clear: when AI chatbots provide answers directly, users don’t feel compelled to click through to the original source. This pattern aligns with broader industry concerns that AI-powered search results could fundamentally disrupt the traditional web traffic ecosystem that content creators and platforms have relied upon for decades.
A Complex Relationship with AI Companies
Reddit’s stance on AI is nuanced and sometimes contradictory. The company locked down its data through a policy change in May 2024, indicating that commercial use of its data would require a license. Simultaneously, Reddit signed a deal with OpenAI to allow the use of Reddit data for model training.
The platform has also established a partnership agreement with Google, while pursuing legal action against other AI companies. Reddit has started legal battles with AI companies like Anthropic and Perplexity over alleged unauthorized data use.
Huffman characterized these relationships as healthy, noting “we both learned a lot over the last couple of years, really the value of Reddit’s data and where our respective products can go and how we can help each other.” However, he remained emphatic that these partnerships haven’t translated into significant referral traffic.
Strong Quarter Despite AI Underwhelm
Despite the limited impact of AI chatbots on traffic, Reddit reported a robust quarter with $585 million in revenue, up 68% year-over-year. The company recorded 116 million daily active unique users and 444 million weekly active unique users, representing 20% growth year-over-year.
The platform saw particularly strong international growth, with 31% year-on-year increase in international daily users. Domestically, more than 190 million Americans visit the social network every week.
Building Its Own AI Search Experience
Rather than relying on external AI chatbots to drive traffic, Reddit is investing heavily in its own AI-powered search capabilities. Huffman revealed that the company is handling 20% of search volumes through its AI-powered Answers and core search functionality. In Q3, 75 million people searched weekly on Reddit.
The company has been working to unify AI and the core search experience, with Huffman indicating this integration is coming in the next few quarters. This strategy suggests Reddit views AI as a tool to keep users on its platform rather than as a referral source from external AI tools.
Improving User Onboarding
Reddit is also experimenting with a simpler onboarding flow to increase early user engagement. “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 relevant content very quickly,” Huffman explained.
This focus on first-time user experience addresses one of Reddit’s longstanding challenges: helping newcomers navigate its complex ecosystem of communities and find their niche before they become overwhelmed or discouraged.
Broader Implications for Content Platforms
Reddit’s experience carries significant implications for other content-heavy platforms. If AI chatbots are providing satisfactory answers without generating clickthroughs, the traditional content ecosystem faces a fundamental threat. Publishers and platforms that have built their business models around search traffic referrals may need to reconsider their strategies.
The dynamic creates a paradox: AI companies need platforms like Reddit to train their models and provide authoritative information, yet their products may ultimately reduce traffic to those same sources. This tension explains why Reddit has been aggressive in monetizing data licensing deals while simultaneously reporting minimal traffic benefits from AI partnerships.
What This Means for AI Search’s Future
Huffman’s assessment aligns with emerging data suggesting that while AI search tools are growing in usage, they haven’t yet disrupted traditional search patterns as dramatically as some predicted. Users appear to be adopting a hybrid approach—using AI chatbots for quick answers while still relying on traditional search engines and direct navigation for deeper engagement with content sources.
For Reddit, this reality means that despite inking lucrative deals with AI companies for data access, the platform cannot yet count on AI-driven referrals as a meaningful growth driver. Instead, the company is wisely investing in its own AI capabilities to enhance the user experience on its platform, keeping engagement internal rather than depending on external AI tools to send traffic its way.
The Bottom Line
Reddit’s Q3 earnings call delivered an important reality check for the tech industry’s AI narrative. While AI chatbots are transforming how people search for information, they’re not yet functioning as the traffic drivers many anticipated. Traditional channels—search engines and direct visits—remain dominant, at least for now.
This doesn’t diminish the transformative potential of AI, but it suggests the revolution may unfold more gradually than the hype suggests. For platforms like Reddit, the winning strategy appears to be building their own AI capabilities to enhance user experience while monetizing their data through licensing deals, rather than banking on AI-driven referrals to fuel growth.
As the AI search landscape continues to evolve, Reddit’s experience offers a valuable case study in the gap between technological capability and actual user behavior—a reminder that even in the age of AI, some fundamentals of web traffic remain stubbornly persistent.
This analysis is based on Reddit’s Q3 2025 earnings call held on October 31, 2025.
