During the Q3 2026 earnings call, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated that Google’s AI-powered search features are failing to generate traffic for the platform. According to company data, search referrals dropped by more than 1 million per week in October. Huffman noted that AI Overviews push search results further down the page, fundamentally altering how Google directs users to external sites.
Huffman also highlighted that machine-translated Reddit content appears to be ranking lower in international search results. Despite these challenges, Reddit remains a top search term on Google, and the search engine continues to crawl the platform at previous levels. This suggests that while user demand for Reddit content persists, Google’s referral patterns have shifted significantly.
To mitigate the decline in search traffic, Reddit is focusing on transforming the platform into a daily destination for users. The company recently launched a personalized For You feed and is testing AI-generated short videos based on platform posts. Additionally, Reddit announced a new requirement for all users to log in, citing improvements to user experience, advertising, and data protection as primary drivers.
