Hyderabad: Reddit on Tuesday announced the rollout of a new AI-powered feature, called Reddit Answers, to help users find "information, recommendations, discussions, and hot takes" from real conversations and communities across the platform.
The company is testing the feature with a limited number of users in the US with support currently available only in English. The platform plans to expand Reddit Answers to additional languages and locations in the future.
Reddit Answers: Everything you need to know
Reddit Answers offers an AI-powered conversational interface that allows users of the platform to ask questions and receive answers in the form of curated summaries of relevant conversations and details across Reddit. These responses include links to related communities and posts.
Users can either read relevant snippets and answers inline from other users or jump into the full conversations to deepen their search with their own or suggested follow-up questions.
"People know that Reddit has answers, advice, and perspectives on almost anything they're looking for, and AI-powered search is part of our longer-term vision to improve the search experience on Reddit – making it faster, smarter, and more relevant," Reddit said in a blog post.
In essence, Reddit Answers works similarly to other AI search tools or AI chatbots, but the answers are based on conversations between real humans on the platform as Reddit's tool sources its information solely from posts found on Reddit, not from across the web.
For instance, if you were to ask-- What are some tips for better sleep?, Reddit Answers will pull up information in a well-structured format, followed by a section dedicated to the source, allowing users to click on posts from where the answer was generated and see individual answers provided by Redditors.
Reddit Answers leverages AI models from OpenAI and Google Cloud. It has data-licensing agreements with both companies, which require them to pay Reddit for using its data for training their AI models. Known as the first page of the internet, Reddit is known for unfiltered discussions, reliable news, and communities built around niche interests.
