Reddit CEO Steve Huffman just delivered a reality check on AI's traffic impact. During the company's Q3 earnings call, he revealed that chatbots aren't driving meaningful visits to the platform, even as AI companies tout search breakthroughs. Google search and direct access remain Reddit's primary traffic sources, each accounting for roughly 50% of visits according to Huffman's remarks to analysts.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman just threw cold water on the AI traffic revolution narrative. During the company's Q3 earnings call, he told analysts point-blank that chatbots "are not a major traffic driver today" for the social platform, even as companies like OpenAI and Google celebrate breakthroughs in AI-powered search.
The admission is striking given Reddit's central role in training the very AI models that are supposed to be reshaping how people discover content. When an analyst pressed Huffman on traffic sources, he confirmed that Google search and direct access continue dominating, splitting roughly 50-50 - numbers he called "approximate, but pretty close."
"I think our relationships with the companies that we work for - or work with directly are healthy, and we both learned a lot over the last couple of years, really the value of Reddit's data," Huffman said during the earnings call. "But they're not a major traffic driver today."
The comment reveals a fascinating disconnect between AI hype and actual user behavior. While tech giants push chatbot interfaces as the future of search, Reddit users apparently still prefer traditional discovery methods for reaching the platform's discussions and communities.
Reddit's relationship with AI companies has been anything but smooth. The company locked down its data in May 2024, requiring licenses for commercial use, while simultaneously signing a partnership with OpenAI for model training. The platform also has licensing agreements with Google but is actively suing Anthropic and Perplexity over data usage.
