Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said AI chatbots aren’t a major traffic driver for the social platform, despite companies like OpenAI and Google seeing progress in people using AI for search. During Reddit’s Q3 2025 call, the executive noted that Google search and instant access continue to be the top traffic drivers.
“[Chatbots are] no traffic guide today. I think our relationships with the companies we work for — or work with directly — are healthy, and we’ve both learned a lot over the last couple of years, really the value of Reddit data and where our respective products can go and how we can help each other. So I’m looking forward to continuing to work on these things with these partners. But it’s not a major driver of traffic today,” Huffman said on the call with analysts.
An analyst asked the company if 50% of traffic comes from Google and 50% directly. Huffman said those numbers are “approximate, but close enough.”
Reddit has had a rocky relationship with LLM builders. The company locked down its data through a new policy change in May 2024 and said any kind of commercial use of its data would require permission. At the same time, the company signed a deal with OpenAI to allow it to use Reddit data to train models.
The company also has cooperation agreement with Google. On the other hand, a legal battle has begun with artificial intelligence companies such as Anthropic and Embarrassment.
Reddit reported a positive quarter with revenue of $585 million, up 68% year over year. The company also had 116 million daily active unique users and 444 million weekly active unique users, up 20% year over year. The company reported a 31% year-over-year increase in international daily users. It also said that more than 190 million Americans visit the social network every week.
The company said it continues to invest in making the search experience a central part of the experience. Huffman said the company handles 20% of its search volumes through its AI-powered answers and “that kind of basic search framework.” He noted that in the third quarter, 75 million people searched Reddit weekly. The company has talked about integrating artificial intelligence and the core search experience, and Huffman said that will come in the next few quarters.
Additionally, Reddit is experimenting with a new and 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 said.
