Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says there are two types of people who come to social media platforms.
Skler is what comes to Reddit's core products, a community conversation, and engages on topics he has passion for, from R/Sourdough to R/PopCultureChat. Then there are seekers. People who may enter a specific query into Google search and then tack “Reddit” at the end can find real advice and opinions from real people.
Reddit Answers Ay is the company's AI-powered chatbot that surfaces verbatim answers and summaries from existing Reddit posts. And early results suggest that they have already gained traction.
“Until recently, we weren't building products for them,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said Thursday in the company's first quarter revenue call. “At that moment, those users aren't coming to Reddit for the community. They're coming for answers, and I think we can. [acknowledge] A use case in which users bring us in and are more effective at solving it. ”
Reddit announced during the call that since its release on Beta in December, its response product already has 1 million active users. Last month, Reddit expanded its answers across the US and Australia, the UK, Canada and India.
This feature, still in beta, currently lives in the app's navigation bar as its own individual experience. As we enter 2025, Reddit plans to deepen its answers into the platform in several different ways.
Huffman said the most obvious way to do this is to integrate the answer into the primary search box, allowing users to enter the full query rather than a few keywords.
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The executive also said the company is exploring ways to integrate answers into the launch of its user journey.
“So you're the first new user to open Reddit, and use the answer to see what Reddit is about and learn that Reddit almost certainly has what you're looking for,” he said.
Another “entry point” in the answer is through external search. [users] Huffman should get a more summary or a simple version of the Persing answer on Reddit.
It also protects Reddit from the mercy of Google searches. In the fourth quarter of 2024, changes to Google search algorithms caused “volatility” due to the growth of Reddit users.
“We're an open platform and want people to find reddit content [Google] Huffman said. “Being open drives awareness and visibility, and can also create variability. We've seen a few this year, so we're hoping for some bumps along the way from Google. This is expected in any year, but given the intensely built search ecosystem, close conditions can be more bumpy than usual.”
Reddit stocks spiked in trading outside of business hours as they beat analyst revenue expectations and strong user growth. The company reported a 61% increase from the previous year to $392.4 million, a adjusted EBITDA of $115.3 million, and a 31% increase in 108.1 million active unique users.
In the second quarter, Reddit estimated revenues ranging from $410 to $430 million, adjusting its EBITDA from $110 to $130 million.