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Reddit announced it is testing a new ad format that places ads directly in search results, targeting a limited group of advertisers initially. The ads will be shown based on contextual relevance, such as surfacing coffee-related product ads for searches like "espresso station." Reddit said it will evaluate user response before expanding the format further.
Google announced that starting next year, AI features like Gemini and Gemini Notebook will be turned off by default for K-12 student accounts, requiring school administrators to manually enable them. However, schools that choose to keep AI disabled will also lose access to Google Search for those student accounts, since the company says the two are deeply integrated.
Google will default to disabling AI tools for K-12 student accounts starting early next year unless administrators opt in to enable them. However, schools that choose to block AI features entirely will also lose student access to Google Search, since the company says search and AI are now deeply integrated in its product.
Google announced that starting next year, AI features across Gemini, NotebookLM, Gemini in Classroom, and Search will be off by default for K-12 students unless school administrators turn them on. However, because Google has integrated AI directly into Search, schools that opt out of AI entirely will also lose access to Google Search itself. The company said the policy follows discussions with schools, teachers, researchers, and policymakers.
Reddit's stock dropped 29.22% on Friday, its steepest single-day fall since going public in 2024, after the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales growth and issued a soft sales forecast. CEO Steve Huffman said search-referral traffic from Google declined 'meaningfully' this quarter due to AI Overviews, and the company is moving toward requiring logins for previously open access.
Reddit's stock fell 30% Friday, its worst single-day decline since going public in 2024, after the company guided fourth-quarter sales to $1 billion-$1.03 billion, below Wall Street's $1.05 billion estimate. The forecast came despite Reddit beating expectations on Q3 earnings and revenue, which grew 53% year-over-year but at a slower pace than prior quarters. CEO Steve Huffman said search-referral traffic from Google declined significantly this quarter due to AI Overviews, and the company announced plans to test requiring logins to view content.
Google is rolling out ads inside AI Mode search results to 10 additional countries, including Australia, Canada and India, with Brazil, Mexico and the UK to follow later this year. In the US, the company is introducing 'multiturn ads' that can appear within follow-up conversational queries when Google detects commercial intent, alongside ads on initial AI Mode searches. The move follows comments from Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler that search ad revenue growth slowed in Q3 2026 as queries shift to AI Overviews and AI Mode, which monetize at lower rates than traditional search.
Alphabet reported 25% revenue growth to $127.6bn and a 103% jump in Google Cloud revenue, but quarterly profit fell 25% and free cash flow turned negative by more than $9bn, roughly double the prior quarter's shortfall. The company's market value dropped from $3.97tn to $3.46tn as its stock fell nearly 13% on Thursday, one of its worst single-day showings this year.
Google is rolling out advertisements within AI Mode search results to Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore, with Brazil, Mexico, and the UK to follow later this year. In the US, Google is introducing 'multiturn' ads that can appear across follow-up queries, not just the initial search.
Alphabet shares fell sharply after Q3 earnings showed its AI Mode search feature generates less revenue than traditional search, even though overall search revenue rose 12% year-over-year to $63.25 billion. At its lowest point, Alphabet lost roughly $524 billion in market value, the second-largest single-day loss for a US-listed company ever, behind only Nvidia's drop in January 2025. Bespoke Investment Group noted it marks Alphabet's steepest post-earnings decline since going public in 2004.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said on the company's Q3 2026 earnings call that Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews no longer send meaningful traffic to Reddit or other websites. Reddit disclosed that weekly search referrals fell by more than 1 million on average in October, which Huffman linked partly to AI-driven search changes and to machine-translated content being ranked lower outside the US.
Artificial Analysis reports that Google's new Gemini 4 Carbon model has topped its Intelligence Index v5 with a score of 59, ranking first in 4 of 9 component evaluations including HLE-Diamond and AA-Omniscience. The model also placed second on the firm's Coding Agent Index, trailing only Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, and showed sizable gains in agentic knowledge-work benchmarks over its predecessor, Gemini 4 Argon. The model is currently in limited rollout with a 50% launch discount and not yet publicly available.