Reddit is one of the largest troves of information on the web. It's no wonder some users have resorted to adding the site:reddit.com filter to their queries on popular search engines like Google. Even big tech companies and AI labs can’t deny Reddit’s impact, which is why they’re scrambling to get access to its massive, valuable data.
For example, Google, last year, struck a deal worth $60 million to license Reddit’s content for training its AI models, with OpenAI following months later with an agreement to get access to real-time content from Reddit.
Reddit, perhaps in recognition of its unique position, launched its generative AI search tool, Answers, in December last year. The way it works is that users will input their questions and get a response that contains information pulled from different sources across the internet. This way, users will be less dependent on the filter mentioned earlier.
Now, at Cloud Next 2025, Reddit and Google announced a partnership to power Reddit Answers using Gemini on Vertex AI. Vertex AI is an ML platform that lets developers train and deploy ML models and AI applications and customize large language models (LLMs) for use in their AI-powered applications. According to Matt Snelham, SVP of Infrastructure at Reddit:
By integrating Google Cloud's Vertex AI Search along with Reddit-built technology into Reddit Answers, we are bringing the same innovation that powers Google to our users.
Users are seeing improved search relevance and as a result, we've seen a growth in users directly navigating to the Reddit homepage through Reddit Answers, increasing platform engagement.
This means that when you ask a question on Reddit Answers, Gemini works in the background to provide a summary based on responses from existing posts and comments, ensuring proper citation and enabling follow-up questions.
Reddit Answers is currently only available in the US, in English, on iOS devices, and on the web. There's no specific timeline for when Reddit's going to bring the feature to more regions, platforms, and languages.
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