Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said AI chatbots are not a major traffic driver for the social platform, even though companies like OpenAI and Google have seen advances in people using AI for search. During Reddit’s Q3 2025 conference call, the executive said Google search and direct visits continue to be the biggest drivers of traffic.
“[Chatbots]are not a traffic driver right now. I think our relationships with the companies that we work with or work with directly are healthy. And we’ve really started to understand the value of Reddit’s data over the last few years and how each product can go and how it can go. So I’m looking forward to continuing to work on these things with these partners. But they’re not the primary traffic drivers today,” Huffman said on a call with analysts.
Analysts asked the company if 50% of its traffic comes from Google and 50% direct, and Huffman said those numbers are “rough, but pretty close.”
Reddit’s relationship with LLM builders has been difficult. The company locked down the data through a new policy change in May 2024, stating that any commercial use of the data would require a license. At the same time, the company signed a deal with OpenAI to allow it to use Reddit data for model training.
The company also has a partnership agreement with Google. Meanwhile, the company is engaged in legal battles with AI companies such as Anthropic and Perplexity.
Reddit reported a strong quarter, with revenue up 68% year over year to $585 million. The company also recorded 116 million daily active unique users and 444 million weekly active unique users, an increase of 20% year over year. The company said it recorded a 31% year-on-year increase in the number of daily users overseas. It also said that more than 190 million Americans access social networks 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 volume through AI-powered Answers and “that kind of core search box.” He noted that 75 million people searched Reddit each week in the third quarter. The company is talking about integrating AI with its core search experience, which Huffman said will happen in the next few quarters.
Additionally, Reddit is experimenting with new and simpler onboarding flows to increase early user engagement.
“We want people to know in their first session that Reddit is great and that we have content that’s right for them. So our goal is to quickly connect users with relevant content,” Huffman said.
