Reddit is making a bold move: it wants to be more than just a social platform—it’s aiming to become a full-fledged search engine. With more than 70 million users relying on Reddit Search every week, the company is leaning into that behavior in a big way.
As part of this shift, Reddit is revamping its app to prioritize search from the moment you open it. A major change includes combining the traditional search bar with Reddit Answers—a tool powered by AI that pulls insights from user posts and comment threads to deliver more relevant results.
CEO Steve Huffman believes Reddit has something no one else does: real, lived experiences shared by real people. This gives it an edge over typical search engines when it comes to answering nuanced or personal questions.
If you’ve ever added “reddit” to the end of a Google search, you’re not alone—and Reddit is hoping to capture that habit natively. With millions already engaging with Reddit Answers, the company sees huge potential in becoming a direct destination for finding information.
Even though Reddit has a partnership with Google to license its data for AI training, it’s clearly aiming to be more than just a data provider. It wants to be the place people go first when they have questions.
TL;DR
Reddit is redesigning its app to make search a central feature. While it still shares data with Google, Reddit is also carving out its own space as a smarter, more community-driven alternative for everyday information searches.
