Reddit's CEO Says Google's AI Mode "Does Not Drive Traffic". Here's What That Means for Your Marketing
The short answer: Reddit lost more than 1 million Google search referrals a week in October, and its CEO blamed Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews. People still search. They just read the AI answer and stop there. If your growth plan depends on clicks from Google (to Reddit, to your blog, anywhere), that plan is getting weaker. The brands that win now are the ones named inside the AI answer.
What happened
On Reddit's October 29 earnings call, CEO Steve Huffman said:
"Google is crawling us as hard as ever... The reality is, AI Mode does not drive traffic. Not for us, and not to anybody, as far as I know."
The numbers, from Dealroom's write-up and Reuters:
- 1M+ fewer search referrals per week on average in October.
- US daily active uniques fell 2% to 50.7 million, the first drop since Reddit went public in 2024.
- Reddit warned Q4 daily uniques could fall by a low double-digit percentage.
- Shares closed about 29% lower on October 30, their worst day since listing.
Why it happened
Google now answers the question at the top of the page. AI Overviews and AI Mode have rolled out across the US and other markets, and they push the regular results further down.
So the old loop broke:
- Someone searches "best running shoes for flat feet".
- Before: they click a Reddit thread, read it, maybe click a brand.
- Now: they read Google's AI answer. Done. No click.
Notice what Huffman also said: Google is crawling Reddit "as hard as ever". The demand for the content didn't change. AI still reads Reddit. Humans just read the AI.
Reddit is a shrinking traffic source
Reddit itself is fine as a business. Revenue grew 53% to $895 million last quarter. But as a way to get found through Google, it is shrinking fast, and Reddit is now pushing people to log in, which makes threads even less visible on the open web.
If your marketing plan is "get our brand into Reddit threads so people find us on Google", you are betting on the channel Reddit's own CEO just said is drying up.
Where buying decisions are moving
People are asking AI what to buy, and increasingly, letting AI do the buying.
Instinct, a personal AI agent that books trips, orders groceries and makes purchases on its own, raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation in September. Its valuation quadrupled in about a month.
When an AI picks the restaurant, the software, or the coffee, the only brands in the running are the ones the AI already knows about and trusts. If you aren't in the answer, you aren't in the decision.
How to show up in the AI answer
AI answers come from pages that already rank on Google. In our 100-prompt DeepSeek study, AI cited 83% of #1 results and 53% of #10 results.
That gives you two jobs:
- Build domain authority. You can't rank without it, and AI never sees pages that don't rank. Authority comes from quality backlinks on real, established sites. This is the step most teams skip. They write good content, then wonder why nobody cites it.
- Write answer-first content. Put the answer in the first few sentences, use the question as the heading, and be specific enough for AI to quote you as-is.
The full breakdown, with a worked example, is in our Complete Guide to Answer Engine Optimization.
Check where you stand
See which keywords your competitors win that you don't, and whether your domain authority is the thing holding you back.
How OGTool helps
We build your domain authority with backlinks from our clients' sites (average DR 150) and publish AEO posts for keywords you can win now. Brands using our AEO agent show up on 72% of the terms it targets.
- Vision went from a brand-new domain to DR 140 in three months and got cited by ChatGPT
- Kea.ai: 0% to 70% of leads from ChatGPT
FAQ
Did Google's AI Mode really cause Reddit's traffic drop?
Reddit called it the leading part of its hypothesis, not a confirmed cause. Huffman also said machine-translated Reddit content is ranking lower, which mainly hits traffic outside the US.
Is Reddit still worth using for marketing?
As a way to get Google clicks, it's getting weaker. Being mentioned on Reddit can still help, because AI reads it. Brands named on many sites show up in AI answers far more often than brands named on one.
Does this only affect Reddit?
No. Huffman said AI Mode doesn't drive traffic "to anybody, as far as I know". Publishers, review sites and any business relying on content marketing for leads face the same shift.
What should I do first?
Run the gap checker. It tells you whether your problem is low domain authority or content AI can't quote.
