GoKawiilSteve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, speaks during WSJ Tech Live conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal at the Montage Laguna Beach in Laguna Beach, California, on October 21, 2024.
As Google continues pushing AI-powered summaries to users, sites like Reddit aren't getting the kind of referral traffic they did in the past.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in an interview on Thursday, coinciding with his company's quarterly earnings report, that Google's artificial intelligence offering called AI Overviews has created uncertainty when it comes to search-derived traffic.
Reddit has historically been a major beneficiary of Google search referrals, which have helped the company obtain users. But with Google providing more information on its own page and pushing blue links further down, the economics of the internet are changing.
"Search is volatile, and we see those changes, we've been through those many times," Huffman said.
Although Reddit reported second-quarter revenue and earnings that soared past estimates and issued a better-than-expected forecast, the stock plummeted 11% in extended trading, underscoring Wall Street's concerns about what Google's alterations mean for the future.
"If we look at the Google ecosystem, the 10 blue links have driven a tremendous amount of value for the whole ecosystem," Huffman said. "AI Overviews has yet to make a similar level of positive impact, and that seems consistent across the broader landscape."
Google didn't respond to a request for comment.