Eighty million people use Reddit search every week, Reddit said on its Q4 2025 earnings call last week. The increase followed a major change: Reddit merged its core search with its AI-powered Reddit Answers and began positioning the platform as a place where users can start — and finish — their searches.

• Executives framed the move as a response to changing behavior. People are increasingly researching products and making decisions by asking questions within communities rather than relying solely on traditional search engines.
• Reddit is betting it can keep more of that intent on-platform, rather than acting mainly as a source of links for elsewhere.

Why we care. Reddit is becoming a place where people start — and complete — their searches without ever touching Google. For brands, that means visibility on Reddit now matters as much as ranking in traditional and AI search for many buying decisions.

Reddit’s search ambitions. CEO Steve Huffman said Reddit made “significant progress” in Q4 by unifying keyword search with Reddit Answers, its AI-driven Q&A experience. Users can now move between standard search results and AI answers in a single interface, with Answers also appearing directly inside search results.

• “Reddit is already where people go to find things,” Huffman said, adding the company wants to become an “end-to-end search destination.”
• More than 80 million people searched Reddit weekly in Q4, up from 60 million a year earlier, as users increasingly come to the platform to research topics — not just scroll feeds or click through from Google.

Reddit Answers is growing. Reddit Answers is driving much of that growth. Huffman said Answers queries jumped from about 1 million a year ago to 15 million in Q4, while overall search usage rose sharply in parallel.

• He said Answers performs best for open-ended questions—what to buy, watch, or try—where people want multiple perspectives instead of a single factual answer. Those queries align naturally with Reddit’s community-driven discussions.
• Reddit is also expanding Answers beyond text. Huffman said the company is piloting “dynamic agentic search results” that include media formats, signaling a more interactive and immersive search experience ahead.

Search is a ‘big one’ for Reddit. Huffman said the company is testing new app layouts that give search prominent placement, including versions with a large, always-visible search bar at the top of the home screen.

• COO Jennifer Wong said search and Answers represent a major opportunity, even though monetization remains early on some surfaces.
• Wong described Reddit search behavior as “incremental and additive” to existing engagement and often tied to high-intent moments, such as researching purchases or comparing options.

AI answers make Reddit more important. Huffman also linked Reddit’s search push to its partnerships with Google and OpenAI. He said Reddit content is now the most-cited source in AI-generated answers, highlighting the platform’s growing influence on how people find information.

• Reddit sees AI summaries as an opportunity — to move users from AI answers into Reddit communities, where they can read discussions, ask follow-up questions, and participate.
• If someone asks “what the best speaker is,” he said, Reddit wants users to discover not just a summary, but the community where real people are actively debating the topic.

Reddit earnings. Reddit Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results; Announces $1 Billion Share Repurchase Program

Google’s AI Mode isn’t more likely to cite content that appears “above the fold,” according to a study from SALT.agency, a technical SEO and content agency.

• After analyzing more than 2,000 URLs cited in AI Mode responses, researchers found no correlation between how high text appears on a page and whether Google’s AI selects it for citation.

Pixel depth doesn’t matter. AI Mode cited text from across entire pages, including content buried thousands of pixels down.

• Citation depth showed no meaningful relationship to visibility.
• Average depth varied by vertical, from about 2,400 pixels in travel to 4,600 pixels in SaaS, with many citations far below the traditional “above the fold” area.

Page layout affects depth, not visibility. Templates and design choices influenced how far down the cited text appeared, but not whether it was cited.

• Pages with large hero images or narrative layouts pushed cited text deeper, while simpler blog or FAQ-style pages surfaced citations earlier.
• No layout type showed a visibility advantage in AI Mode.

Descriptive subheadings matter. One consistent pattern emerged: AI Mode frequently highlighted a subheading and the sentence that followed it.

• This suggests Google uses heading structures to navigate content, then samples opening lines to assess relevance, behavior consistent with long-standing search practices, according to SALT.

What Google is likely doing. SALT believes AI Mode relies on the same fragment indexing technology Google has used for years. Pages are broken into sections, and the most relevant fragment is retrieved regardless of where it appears on the page.

What they’re saying. While the study examined only one structural factor and one AI model, the takeaway is clear: there’s no magic formula for AI Mode visibility. Dan Taylor, partner and head of innovation (organic and AI) at SALT.agency, said:

• “Our study confirms that there is no magic template or formula for increased visibility in AI Mode responses – and that AI Mode is not more likely to cite text from ‘above the fold.’ Instead, the best approach mirrors what’s worked in search for years: create well-structured, authoritative content that genuinely addresses the needs of your ideal customers.
• “…the data clearly debunks the idea that where the information sits within a page has an impact on whether it will be cited.”

Why we care. The findings challenge the idea that AI-specific templates or rigid page structures drive better AI Mode visibility. Chasing “AI-optimized” layouts may distract from work that actually matters.

About the research. SALT analyzed 2,318 unique URLs cited in AI Mode responses for high-value queries across travel, ecommerce, and SaaS. Using a Chrome bookmarklet and a 1920×1080 viewport, researchers recorded the vertical pixel position of the first highlighted character in each AI-cited fragment. They also cataloged layouts and elements, such as hero sections, FAQs, accordions, and tables of contents.

The study. Research: Does Structuring Your Content Improve the Chances of AI Mode Surfacing?

Google Search is entering an “expansionary moment,” fueled by longer queries, more follow-up questions, and rising use of voice and images. That’s according to Alphabet’s executives who spoke on last night’s Q4 earnings call.

• In other words: Google Search is shifting toward AI-driven experiences, with more conversations happening inside Google’s own interfaces.

Why we care. AI in Google Search is no longer an experiment. It’s a structural shift that’s changing how people search and reshaping discovery, visibility, and traffic across the web.

By the numbers. Alphabet’s Q4 advertising revenue totaled $82.284 billion, up 13.5% from $72.461 billion 2024:

• Google Search & other: $63.073 billion (up 16.7%)
• YouTube: $11.383 billion (up 8.7%)
• Google Network: $7.828 billion ( down 1.5%)

Alphabet’s 2025 fiscal year advertising revenue totaled $294.691 billion, up 11.4% from $264.590 billion in 2024:

• Google Search & other: $224,532 billion (up 13.4%)
• YouTube: $40.367 billion (up 11.7%)
• Google Network: $29.792 billion ( down 1.9%)

AI Overviews and AI Mode are now core to Search. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Google pushed aggressively on AI-powered search features in Q4, highlighting how central they’ve become to the product.

• “We shipped over 250 product launches, within AI mode and AI overviews just last quarter,” Pichai said.

This includes Google upgrading AI Overviews to its Gemini 3 model. He said the company has tightly linked AI Overviews with conversational search.

• “We have also made the search experience more cohesive, ensuring the transition from an AI Overview to a conversation in AI Mode is completely seamless,” Pichai said.

AI is driving more Google Search usage. Executives repeatedly described AI-driven search as additive, saying it boosts overall usage rather than replacing traditional queries.

• “Search saw more usage in Q4 than ever before, as AI continues to drive an expansionary moment,” Pichai said.

Engagement rises once users interact with AI-powered features, Google said.

• “Once people start using these new experiences, they use them more,” Pichai said.

Changing search behavior. Google shared new data points showing how AI Mode is changing search behavior — making queries longer, more conversational, and increasingly multimodal.

• “Queries in AI Mode are three times longer than traditional searches,” Pichai said.

Sessions are also becoming more conversational.

• “We are also seeing sessions become more conversational, with a significant portion of queries in AI Mode, now leading to a follow-up question,” he said.

AI Mode is also expanding beyond text.

• “Nearly one in six AI mode queries are now non-text using voice or images,” Pichai said.

Google highlighted continued distribution of visual search capabilities, noting that:

• “Circle to Search is now available on over 580 million Android devices,” Pichai said.

Gemini isn’t cannibalizing Search. As the Gemini app continues to grow, Google says it hasn’t seen signs that users are abandoning Search.

• “We haven’t seen any evidence of cannibalization,” Pichai said.

Instead, Google said users move fluidly between Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the Gemini app.

• “The combination of all of that, I think, creates an expansionary moment,” Pichai said.

Anthropic is drawing the line against advertising in AI chatbots. Claude will remain ad-free, the company said, even as rival AI platforms experiment with sponsored messages and branded placements inside conversations.

• Ads inside AI chats would erode trust, warp incentives, and clash with how people actually use assistants like Claude (for work, problem-solving, and sensitive topics), Anthropic said in a new blog post.

Why we care. Anthropic’s position removes Claude, and its user base of 30 million, from the AI advertising equation. Brands shouldn’t expect sponsored links, conversations, or responses inside Claude. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is about to give brands the opportunity to reach an estimated 800 million weekly users.

What’s happening. AI conversations are fundamentally different from search results or social feeds, where users expect a mix of organic and paid content, Anthropic said:

• Many Claude interactions involve personal issues, complex technical work, or high-stakes thinking. Dropping ads into those moments would feel intrusive and could quietly influence responses in ways users can’t easily detect.
• Ad incentives tend to expand over time, gradually optimizing for engagement rather than genuine usefulness.

Incentives matter. This is a business-model decision, not just a product preference, Anthropic said:

• An ad-free assistant can focus entirely on what helps the user — even if that means a short exchange or no follow-up at all.
• An ad-supported model, by contrast, creates pressure to surface monetizable moments or keep users engaged longer than necessary.
• Once ads enter the system, users may start questioning whether recommendations are driven by help or by commerce.

Anthropic isn’t rejecting commerce. Claude will still help users research, compare, and buy products when they ask. The company is also exploring “agentic commerce,” where the AI completes tasks like bookings or purchases on a user’s behalf.

• Commerce should be triggered by the user, not by advertisers, Anthropic said.
• The same rule applies to third-party integrations like Figma or Asana. These tools will remain user-directed, not sponsored.

Super Bowl ad. Anthropic is making the argument publicly and aggressively. In a Super Bowl debut, the company mocked intrusive AI advertising by inserting fake product pitches into personal conversations. The ad closed with a clear message: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”

• The campaign appears to be a direct shot at OpenAI, which has announced plans to introduce ads into ChatGPT.
• Here’s the ad:

Claude’s blog post. Claude is a space to think

OpenAI responds. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted some thoughts on X. Some of the highlights:

• “…I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.
• “I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it.
• “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.
• “We will continue to work hard to make even more intelligence available for lower and lower prices to our users.”

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