If you do a Google search nowadays, you no longer see a list of links at the very top. Instead, you see a summary of search results curated by artificial intelligence (AI) with links to the various websites cited.
This AI Overview search feature has changed the way people use the internet and put certain websites at the top of searches, one of them being the social media platform Reddit.
Reddit’s growth had been steady since its beginning in 2005, but it skyrocketed in recent years. As of this year, Reddit is more popular than TikTok as a social platform in the UK, according to the country’s regulator Ofcom. And it isn’t a coincidence.
The major spike in users began in 2024, coinciding with the implementation of Google AI Overview and a partnership between Google and Reddit, according to marketing and consulting firm Ipsos. In February 2024, Reddit struck a deal with Google to allow the search engine to train its AI models using Reddit.
Reddit has similar partnerships with other AI foundation model labs, such as OpenAI. This has led to Reddit commonly appearing in search results.
In fact, according to research by analytics platform Profound, Reddit is the most cited source among all major AI platforms. Jasman Singh, a researcher at Profound, said there are a few reasons for this, but the main one is that Reddit is full of user-generated content.
“Inherently, Reddit is a human layer of commentary,” she said.
“When large language models are looking for reliable sources to ground truth in, Reddit is a more neutral, unbiased forum for users to express their opinions, and for large language models to trust over commercial sites or other earned media.”
The social platform has grown exponentially with a 19 percent year-on-year increase. The latest data from Reddit reveals there are 116 million daily active users and over 1 billion monthly active users on the platform.
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a social media site that acts as a discussion forum for millions of niche communities called “subreddits.”
The subreddits are user-created and topic-specific. There is a subreddit for just about anything you can think of. An example of what this looks like is r/BunniesStandingUp, which is exactly what it sounds like: “a hub for all things bunny (standing up).”
Within these subreddits, the platform functions as a discussion forum. Users can share links, images, videos and text within a post. Other users can then reply to the original poster with a comment.
Reddit users can also vote on content. Think of it as “liking” or “disliking” a post, but on Reddit, it is called “upvoting” or “downvoting.” Posts that have a lot of upvotes rise to the top of a subreddit page, and heavily downvoted content is buried.
It may seem simple enough, but there are a few more Reddit-specific features that are important to fully understand how the platform works.
What is Karma?
Karma is a user’s “reputation” on Reddit, determined by a point system. Users earn points from upvotes on posts and comments, and they lose points from downvotes.
There are different types of karma: post, comment and combined. Combined karma is the total sum of a user’s post and comment karma.
Subreddit moderators, who are the users who created a specific subreddit, often require a certain amount of karma to post in the community. This ensures trust and credibility within the subreddit.
New users can begin earning karma by commenting in subreddits with lower karma minimums. Because karma is earned through upvotes, users gain karma quicker if they post engaging, genuine and quality content.
What are Subreddit Rules?
Each subreddit has its own rules determined by the subreddit moderator. These rules typically focus on keeping posts respectful and relevant to the subreddit topic (i.e. “no spam,” or “be respectful”), but the rules can get more specific.
Some subreddits have rules about the formatting of posts (i.e. “no videos”) or the number of posts a user is allowed per day.
A subreddit moderator is the user responsible for ensuring that other users follow the guidelines. To become a moderator, users can create their own subreddit, request to take over an abandoned subreddit or be invited to join an existing moderator team, according to Reddit’s website.
To create a new subreddit, a user’s account must be at least 30 days old and have a minimum amount of karma.