Reddit announced on Thursday that it is expanding its AI-driven search experience to five new languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. With this expansion, the feature is now available in countries such as Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Italy.
Users who have set one of these languages as their default language (rather than English) can now interact with the AI in a question-and-answer format. Reddit uses Google's AI model to power this feature.
Reddit first introduced its AI-driven search feature last year and has since been expanding it in different ways. This feature is part of Reddit Answers and exists alongside the platform's traditional search.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in August that the weekly active users of Reddit search exceeded 70 million, and users of Reddit Answers exceeded 6 million. He also discussed plans for a unified search experience during the company's quarterly earnings call.
Since the integration of ChatGPT with web search, question-and-answer search and conversational interfaces have become increasingly popular. Existing search engines such as Google and Brave have launched similar features to increase user engagement and retention. New startups like Perplexity have also gained momentum with conversational search interfaces.
From a product strategy perspective, Reddit's recent language expansion is an important step in its internationalization strategy. By supporting major European languages and Portuguese, Reddit can better serve users in non-English markets, which have potential for user growth and monetization.
The coexistence of Reddit Answers and traditional search reflects the platform's consideration of balance between new and old features. With 70 million weekly active users using traditional search and 6 million users using the AI Q&A feature, it shows that both search models meet different needs among users. Huffman's mention of the "unified search experience" plan may indicate deeper integration of the two functions in the future.
From an industry trend perspective, conversational search is becoming a standard feature for search engines and content platforms. ChatGPT has driven this trend, and traditional search engines and community platforms are following suit, trying to innovate in user experience and information retrieval methods. As a platform centered around community discussions, Reddit's content is naturally suitable for question-and-answer retrieval, giving its AI search feature a unique advantage—being able to extract answers from a large number of real user discussions.
However, the expansion of AI search features also faces challenges. Multilingual support requires ensuring that the AI can accurately understand the intent behind queries in different languages and extract accurate information from content in those languages. Additionally, the quality of Reddit content varies, and how the AI filters reliable information and avoids spreading incorrect or harmful content remains an issue that needs continuous optimization.
From a business perspective, the promotion of AI search features may change Reddit's traffic distribution model. If users more often obtain information through AI Q&A rather than browsing posts, it could affect ad display and community interaction. Finding a balance between providing a convenient search experience and maintaining community activity is a challenge that Reddit needs to consider.
