Reddit’s AI shopping experiment comes as CEO Steve Huffman positions search as a major growth opportunity for the company. During a recent earnings call, Huffman highlighted that weekly active search users climbed 30% year-over-year — from 60 million to 80 million — while usage of the AI-powered “Reddit Answers” feature surged from 1 million to 15 million users in 2025.

The platform is also stepping into a competitive AI-commerce landscape. Companies like OpenAI have introduced in-chat purchasing tools, while social platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have long integrated shopping features. With AI-driven recommendations and community trust at its core, Reddit is betting that search-powered commerce could become its next major revenue engine.