Reddit CEO Warns Google AI Summaries Are Killing Referral Traffic
AI-generated image · US National Wire · Based on a photo by Austin McKinley (CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Steve Huffman reports a weekly drop of over 1 million search referrals as Google's AI Mode shifts the search experience.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is sounding the alarm over the impact of Google's AI-powered search tools on platform traffic, as first reported by The Verge. During a Q3 2026 earnings call, Huffman stated that Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews have fundamentally shifted the search experience, noting that "AI Mode does not drive traffic" for Reddit or other publishers.
According to reporting from The Verge, Reddit revealed that search traffic in October decreased by an average of more than 1 million referrals per week. Huffman noted that these AI features effectively push platforms down the search results page. He further claimed that machine-translated content is being ranked lower, which primarily impacts Reddit's international reach.
Despite the drop in referrals, Huffman maintains that consumer demand remains high, noting that Reddit is still a "top search term" and that Google continues to crawl the site aggressively.
To offset the loss of search-driven traffic and bolster its ad business, Reddit is pivoting toward becoming a "direct, sticky, daily destination." The company recently introduced a "For You" recommendation feed and is testing an AI tool to convert posts into short videos. Additionally, Reddit announced it will now require all users to log in, a move Huffman says will improve user experience and protect company data.