Reddit is getting into AI-driven ads

Reddit is hoping to convince marketers that all the noise on its platform is, in fact, a signal. At the Cannes Lions ad festival this week, the company unveiled two tools under a “Reddit Community Intelligence” umbrella — part of an AI-powered push to mine its user-generated content for brand insights and marketing performance. 

The announcement comes at a pivotal moment for Reddit, which is still trying to prove that it can be a serious contender in the ad business following its IPO earlier this year. The company’s stock was up 3.6% around midday Monday.

The first tool, Reddit Insights, is a scalable social-listening product that lets marketers analyze Reddit’s posts and comments for trends, sentiment, and cues. The second tool, Conversation Summary Add-ons, embeds positive user-generated posts into ad units. Reddit claims early tests (through companies such as Lucid and Jackbox Games) showed a 19% higher click-through rate than standard image ads.

This isn’t Reddit’s first foray into advertising, but it marks one of its most aggressive attempts yet to move from “hard to monetize” to “ad tech player.” While social platforms such as Facebook and TikTok rely on massive ad budgets and tightly controlled algorithms, Reddit is betting that the real-time, unfiltered nature of its communities — combined with some AI polish — can deliver a different kind of value: authenticity at scale.

CVS will be one of the first big partners to test that thesis. 

Through a just-announced data-sharing deal, the retailer will combine insights from its 90 million-person loyalty program with Reddit’s 108 million daily users. Advertisers will be able to target CVS shoppers based on Reddit activity — and track whether those shoppers go on to make purchases online or in-store. The partnership reflects a broader push by retailers to stretch their media networks beyond their platforms, while giving Reddit a chance to tap into top marketing dollars typically reserved for companies such as Amazon and Walmart.

This push is also part of Reddit’s broader AI strategy.

The company recently launched Reddit Answers, a generative-AI product that summarizes community responses to user questions. Unlike its competitors’ AI products, Reddit’s attempt links back to original posts in an attempt at maintaining transparency and driving engagement within its ecosystem. Reddit is also forging secure data-licensing deals with Google and OpenAI (and notably not with Anthropic, which Reddit is suing for alleged unlicensed AI training).

Now that the ad stack is solid, and generative-AI staples such as headline generators and ad-review bots are live, the company is fast-tracking “community marketing” as its next big lever, Reddit COO Jen Wong told Axios.

“Reddit responds so quickly to new products and what’s happening in the world,” she said. “That’s why it’s so credible and valuable to businesses trying to make decisions in everything — how to market, how to find their customers, how they’re doing in customer service.”

Since its March 2024 IPO, Reddit’s stock has been on a rollercoaster — tripling at one point, then offloading about 30% in early 2025 amid concerns over how Google’s AI Overviews could overshadow Reddit’s traffic. The company reported $358.6 million in ad revenue in the fiscal first quarter, up 61% year-over-year, and while the platform faces pressure from macro factors (trade policy shifts, WPP’s trimming of global ad growth forecasts, and Google search volatility) its bet is straightforward: There’s lots of money in the global ad game.

And there’s broader industry momentum behind the push. Platforms such as Snap and Pinterest have already doubled down on AI-driven ad tools. A big part of the bull case for Reddit rests on its ability to translate high-intent conversations — particularly around categories such as health, tech, and finance — into advertiser value without alienating its opinionated user base.

Whether brands will embrace ads built from Reddit threads remains to be seen. But the company is making a clear pitch: In an era of algorithms, Reddit offers messy, human nuance — and now, a way to package that all up for marketers.