Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has criticised Google's AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries that now appear across most search queries, as publishers and website owners continue to report a decline in referral traffic driven by the broader shift toward AI-powered search. Huffman argued that the feature has failed to deliver the same value to the wider web ecosystem that traditional search results once did, and said that businesses, publishers, and retailers are 'still looking for that win-wi' that the old system of search results used to provide.
Reddit's positioning against AI-driven search
Ahead of his remarks, Huffman wrote a letter to Reddit's investors outlining the platform's strategic direction as AI tools continue to spread across the internet. He wrote that people are increasingly drawn to authentic human perspective as the internet fills up with synthetic content, positioning Reddit as an alternative to AI-summarised information. He argued that while AI tends to condense the internet into short summaries, Reddit instead offers space for detailed discussions, debates, and personal experiences. He also said that as information becomes more abundant through AI tools, people are struggling less with finding content and more with finding genuine context and firsthand accounts, adding that trust in online information has fallen even as the volume of available information has grown.
Reddit's reported move away from its Google licensing deal
Huffman's comments come as Reddit is reportedly working to end its licensing agreement with Google, a deal previously valued at $60 million, according to an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal. The report also named other major publishers, including The Economist, Reuters, Politico, and USA Today, as considering similar moves away from Google. Publishers and platforms have traditionally relied on steady traffic from Google search results, but the introduction of AI Mode and AI Overviews has narrowed their options, since being included in Google's traditional search listings and having content used within AI Overviews currently function as a single package that publishers cannot separate.
Following Reddit's second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings report, the company's shares fell by more than 20 percent. Huffman noted that while most of the quarter's core financial numbers exceeded investor expectations, search referral traffic remained inconsistent, a trend that appears to be weighing on investor sentiment around the platform's future as AI tools continue to reshape how people find information online.
What research shows about AI Overviews' impact on traffic
A Pew Research study published last year, based on survey responses from more than 900 US adults, found that Google's AI Overviews reduced referral traffic to publisher websites by nearly half compared to the traditional list-based search format. Google pushed back on the study's findings, stating that its methodology and query sample were not representative of overall search traffic, and separately said in a blog post that total organic click volume from Google Search to websites had remained relatively stable year over year.
Elsewhere, platforms such as Cloudflare have moved to change default robots.txt configurations partly to pressure Google into adjustments. Google announced changes to AI Overviews earlier this year that it said would lead to more visible links to outside websites, while maintaining that AI Overviews are a permanent feature that benefit both users and the wider web.
