Brands are infiltrating Reddit to rank better on Google's AI search

Latest report shows that companies are flocking to Reddit, how will that affect a platform where users are generally against self-promotion?

Reddit’s Q4 earnings call has, among other things, revealed that brands are increasingly reorganizing their digital marketing structures to be more focused on the platform. Reddit CEO Steven Huffman said that companies are now dedicating entire teams to Reddit, in an effort to capitalize on its favorable position in Google search.

This trend, although not obvious from the start, isn’t surprising. Reddit content now dominates Google search results and powers AI responses in tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Reddit threads are especially prominent in Google’s AI Overviews, as this new search feature predominantly uses Reddit as a source for its answers.

Google and Reddit signed a data-licensing deal in 2024, reportedly worth $60 million annually, which made their two core products more compatible with one another. The deal ensures that Google will use Reddit threads as major sources for AI overviews, while Reddit will use Google’s AI infrastructure for its own platform.

As a result, Reddit became the number one cited source in AI-generated answers, appearing in over 40% of AI responses. For brands, showing up authentically in those threads means getting cited by AI, especially in the current web search landscape, which sees a decrease in organic clicks by up to 60% in favor of quick AI overviews.

Self-promotion on Reddit is nothing new, but a sudden influx of too many brands could drastically change the platform dynamics. The community is generally against self-promotion per posting guidelines; brands know this, so they will keep coming up with ways to stay on the platform. While some pursue legitimate, value-first engagement, others will likely try to push boundaries with subtler tactics that border on manipulation.

Reddit CEO advocates for an organic connection between brands and the audience:

“So the profiles the official accounts, the labeled accounts, even some of that app and bot labeling that I was talking about before are all ways to allow brands to show up as first-class citizens, well-labeled and intentional. And of course, this we believe, will open the gateway for the customer relationship as well.”

It will be interesting to see how brands and regular users will continue to coexist on the platform. If companies view Reddit merely as a mechanism to manipulate AI search results, the platform risks losing its original appeal that was powered by genuine, unfiltered human interaction, not marketing. And Google’s AI search that uses the same data as a source could become just an echo chamber of promotional pitches disguised as genuine advice.