I used to be strolling over to take the stage at SMMW 2026 in Anaheim, California, final Thursday, listening intently to Steve Huffman, founder and CEO of Reddit, speak in regards to the final quarter at Reddit, however extra importantly, to get a way of what the main focus can be for the remainder of the yr.
Query after query, I noticed a narrative unfolding that hadn’t been there in the previous few earnings calls, one which had much less to do with advert income and AI offers than with the underlying adjustments Reddit is making to the platform itself.
These adjustments matter should you’re making an attempt to construct natural presence on Reddit, join with a group, or get cited in AI solutions.
OGS Media works carefully with Reddit, testing new options, contributing to r/redditforbusiness, and different elements we’re engaged on behind closed doorways. However I’ve additionally been on Reddit for 20 years and have been watching these earnings calls because the IPO. This one was totally different and stood out to me.
The headlines you’ll see are all about advert income up 74%, DAU at 126.8 million, and the AI partnership pricing query Wealthy Greenfield requested Steve. All actual, all fascinating.
However Steve and Jen Wong spent extra of this name than any I can keep in mind speaking about issues Reddit doesn’t at all times publicly emphasize. They talked in regards to the worth of actual human connection, about ensuring each view on the platform is effective sufficient that an advert subsequent to it carries weight, and about the way it’s nonetheless too arduous for regular folks to take part on Reddit within the first place.
None of that’s new internally. For those who’ve labored carefully with Reddit’s groups for any size of time, you’ve heard most of it. The brand new factor is that they’re saying it on an earnings name, in entrance of buyers, with their title on it. That’s a distinct sign solely.
The Development Math Isn’t Speculative
When Steve mentioned the aim is 100 million day by day U.S. customers, the headline writes itself. The maths beneath it’s what manufacturers ought to really take note of.
Reddit is sitting at 50 million day by day and 200 million weekly customers within the U.S. proper now. So the 100 million goal isn’t a go-find-new-users drawback, it’s a convert-weekly-into-daily drawback. The viewers is already there.
For perspective, Reddit was at 12 million day by day customers 10 years in the past. Going from 50 to 100 million is a smaller stretch than what they’ve already pulled off, and so they did most of that progress earlier than AI search was a significant tailwind. The headline quantity sounds aspirational, however the math says it’s the subsequent apparent step.
Steve additionally dropped a stat that caught my consideration and was validating. While you take a look at how typically Reddit customers come again, the 2 largest teams are individuals who use Reddit sooner or later per week and individuals who use all of it seven, with the whole lot within the center being smaller. His phrasing was that after they have you ever, they have you ever, which I feel is precisely proper.
For manufacturers making an attempt to resolve whether or not Reddit is value investing in, that is the mathematics that issues. The viewers isn’t an informal scroll, it’s a high-engagement group of individuals spending critical time. That’s a distinct worth proposition than reach-based platforms, and it’s why Reddit content material retains outperforming what most manufacturers can do on their very own websites.
The Boundaries Are Coming Down
A very powerful improvement from this earnings name for natural entrepreneurs is that Reddit is lastly addressing the karma wall drawback in public. It’s one thing we’ve been giving Reddit suggestions on for over a yr via our partnership.
Karma partitions and age gates have made it practically not possible for brand spanking new accounts to take part within the subreddits that really matter. For those who tried to construct an actual Reddit presence in 2025, you hit this every single day, with new worker accounts who couldn’t put up and mods who, fully understandably, didn’t belief any new account as a result of the spam drawback was that unhealthy.
Steve mentioned it straight on the decision. Reddit is “working our means out of age and Karma limits with higher AI-powered spam safety to assist shield communities from unhealthy new customers like spammers, however be welcoming to good new customers.”
This issues greater than it sounds. Reddit has been engaged on this internally for over a yr, and quite a lot of the patterns OGS sees in shopper work feed again into these conversations. Steve saying it publicly on an earnings name is a distinct sign solely. It means the work is shut sufficient to ship that they’re prepared to place their title on it in entrance of buyers.
That’s not Reddit testing whether or not to do one thing. That’s Reddit telling you it’s coming.
Making It Simpler To Begin A Neighborhood
This can be a associated however separate barrier from the karma partitions, and it really issues extra for manufacturers making an attempt to construct one thing critical on Reddit.
Steve talked about Reddit needing to give attention to what they’re calling group success, mainly how straightforward it’s to create and develop a group on the platform. He was clear this isn’t solely a global situation, it consists of the U.S.
That is one thing we run into on each model engagement. If a model desires to launch its personal subreddit, the pure sample is to create the model account, create the subreddit, and begin posting content material to fill it. That content material goes to be in regards to the model’s product or class, as a result of that’s the entire level of the group.
The issue is that the sample seems to be nearly an identical to what spammers and manipulators do once they’re making an attempt to sport Reddit for search or LLM citations. They create the account, create the subreddit, put up the content material, all from the identical supply, all about one matter. Reddit’s defenses are designed to catch precisely that, and for good cause.
However when Model X does the identical factor legitimately, they’ll get caught in the identical web, regardless that they’re not breaking any guidelines, and that is genuinely how an actual group will get began. There isn’t one other technique to launch a model group on Reddit. You must begin with the model account and the model content material.
Steve publicly acknowledging that group success is an issue Reddit wants to resolve is an actual sign for manufacturers. They know the professional path seems to be just like the unhealthy path proper now, and so they’re engaged on a technique to inform them aside. That adjustments the mathematics for any model that’s been holding off on launching its personal group as a result of they had been nervous about getting flagged.
The Human Voice Argument Is Now Official
There is no such thing as a synthetic intelligence with out precise intelligence, and that intelligence has to return from actual folks having actual conversations someplace. Steve mentioned nearly precisely that on the decision.
He went additional when Justin Put up requested about AI engines utilizing Reddit information:
“You will get a floor stage reply from AI, however you want the context. For a lot of questions, there isn’t a solution. There are a number of views describing that reply and a number of the reason why totally different components of that reply is perhaps related to you or not.”
That’s the validation section, nearly phrase for phrase, how I’ve been describing it to shoppers and on stage for practically two years. The place within the person journey the place folks go to really feel okay a few resolution they’re about to make, the place they need context and nuance and different folks’s experiences, not a abstract. There aren’t many moments the place you get to listen to a public firm CEO articulate the framework you’ve been constructing your work round. Watching it occur on an earnings name was its personal sort of validation.
This can be a a lot larger deal than most individuals are giving it credit score for. The previous couple of years of digital advertising have been everybody chasing what AI can do sooner, cheaper, and at extra scale. Reddit is the platform that guess on what AI can’t do, which is generate genuine human dialog. As extra of the web will get summarized and optimized for consideration by fashions, the worth of actual human dialogue goes up, not down.
What’s new is that Reddit’s CEO is now making that the official company place. Steve and Jen each got here again to the human voice argument a number of occasions throughout the name. They tied it to advert worth, to person retention, to the AI offers, and to why manufacturers needs to be on Reddit within the first place.
For entrepreneurs, the learn is that Reddit isn’t a pattern you’re making an attempt to catch. It’s the platform whose complete cause for being is now lining up with how individuals are really utilizing the web within the AI period.
The AI Offers And Search Are Sturdy
Since so many entrepreneurs are centered on the connection between Reddit, Google, and LLMs, it’s essential to notice the Google and OpenAI offers are nonetheless in place and nonetheless useful to either side. Wealthy Greenfield requested, pointedly, whether or not the $50-60 million a yr Reddit will get from these offers is sufficient given how essential the information is. Steve didn’t chunk on a renegotiation query, however he didn’t must. He confirmed the relationships are mutual, energetic, and evolving.
The learn for entrepreneurs is that the AI facet of Reddit’s enterprise isn’t a one-off windfall; it’s a structural a part of how AI will get skilled and the way AI solutions questions. For those who’re making an attempt to point out up in ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews, or anyplace else an LLM is answering, Reddit is within the provide chain.
Search on Reddit itself was additionally referred to as out as an actual precedence. Search WAUqs are up 30% year-over-year, and Reddit is placing precise engineering funding into making it higher. Individuals aren’t solely stumbling onto Reddit via Google anymore; they’re going to Reddit on function to seek out issues they’ll’t get from a Google search or an LLM reply.
The half natural entrepreneurs ought to pay closest consideration to is what’s taking place with Reddit Solutions, Reddit’s AI-powered search expertise contained in the platform. Steve mentioned Reddit Solutions is turning into extra agentic, and gave particular examples. Now you can ask it to check two issues, like “ought to I watch film A or film B,” and so they’re integrating Reddit’s product search catalog straight into the solutions, so once you ask what’s one of the best headphone, you get product hyperlinks proper contained in the response.
That is the validation section, shifting inside Reddit itself. Individuals used to go to Google, discover a Reddit thread, click on via, and browse. Now, Reddit is providing to do the synthesis for them with the identical human conversations beneath. That’s a distinct form of search, and it sits at precisely the second within the purchaser journey the place selections really get made.
For those who’re an natural marketer, that adjustments how you need to take into consideration Reddit content material, the identical means pillar pages as soon as modified how folks thought of weblog posts.
What I Take From All This
For those who’ve been ready on Reddit as a result of the platform felt too closed off, that is your signal. The partitions are coming down, the expansion math is actual, and Reddit’s strategic place round AI and human dialog is locking in publicly.
The subsequent section of promoting isn’t one other channel; it’s being human within the locations folks go to seek out different people. Reddit simply made that the official technique.
If you wish to go deeper on what all this really seems to be like in apply, I’d level you to 2 current webinars I did with Search Engine Journal. “Reddit Advertising in 2026: What Modified, What Truly Works Now“ covers the broader strategic shift, and the newer “From Reddit to Income: Constructing Actual Neighborhood That Drives Gross sales and AI Visibility“ will get into the sensible facet. Each choose up the place this text leaves off.
And should you’ve been struggling to determine how you can get on Reddit or make it really work in your model, that’s actually what we do at OGS Media. Attain out at ogsmedia.com if you wish to speak via it.
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Featured Picture: Brent Csutoras/Search Engine Journal
