Reddit’s new AI search software helps you discover Reddit solutions with out Google

Reddit is launching a brand new AI-powered search software known as Reddit Answers that can assist you extra simply discover info on the platform. The software, just like different AI search merchandise, responds to queries by producing well-formatted responses and exhibiting hyperlinks to its sources.

But the excellence with Reddit Answers is that it sources issues straight from Reddit, which suggests it might be a technique to skip Google and get info straight from the supply. Reddit has already been cracking down on the place you’ll be able to seek for issues from Reddit, and Google is the one main search engine that reveals current Reddit outcomes. But Reddit in all probability would like in the event you did searches proper on its platform, and Reddit Answers may show to be a great way to take action.

Reddit Answers will initially roll out to “a restricted variety of customers” within the US and in English, and it is going to be out there on the net (not on Old Reddit) and iOS. (“We’re engaged on Android as we converse,” Serkan Piantino, Reddit’s VP of product, stated in an interview.) Reddit plans to convey the software to extra languages and areas “sooner or later,” based on a weblog publish.

Reddit gave me entry to a take a look at model of Reddit Answers, and whereas I haven’t been in a position to fiddle with it very a lot, I’ve favored what I’ve seen. There’s a giant field to ask a question, however the preliminary Reddit Answers web page additionally floats a bunch of prompt searches you’ll be able to click on on, like “favourite Nintendo character of all time,” “greatest thriller novels of 2025,” and “suggestions for flying with a child for the primary time.”

I clicked that final one, and the software rapidly pulled collectively an inventory and a few bulleted solutions with hyperlinks on the textual content and an arrow to click on to see the supply of the knowledge. When you click on both, a sidebar pops up exhibiting the precise publish the place the knowledge comes from.

A Reddit web site search for a similar question on Google, however, simply gave me a typical lengthy listing of hyperlinks to guage and click on via. On its face, Google’s model, which doesn’t have the summaries or bullet factors, isn’t as instantly informative as Reddit Answers. But personally, I’m fairly skeptical of AI summaries anyway — they will make some fairly dangerous errors! — so for me, the Google outcomes are nonetheless completely superb as a technique to discover some doubtlessly helpful posts on Reddit.

Reddit Answers may decide up on issues taking place on Reddit inside minutes, based on spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt, so there’s additionally an opportunity responses to your queries can have well timed outcomes. I haven’t had a lot luck with that; on Friday, for instance, I requested “who gained yesterday’s NFL sport,” and as an alternative of pulling up solutions about Thursday’s Packers-Lions sport, it included particulars on the Eagles-Ravens sport that occurred on December 1st.

That might need simply been a quirk of the product not being absolutely prepared but. In my testing, although, Reddit Answers has been far more helpful as a leaping off level to dig right into a extra common matter on Reddit moderately than an up-to-the-minute search software. And whereas Reddit Answers is beneficial, I’m unsure but if it’s ok for me to vary my habits round utilizing Google to seek for issues on Reddit.