SAN FRANCISCO– Reddit has struck a deal with Google that will allow the search giant to use posts from the online discussion site to train its artificial intelligence models and improve products like online search.
The arrangement, announced Thursday and valued at about $60 million, also gives Reddit access to Google AI models to improve site search and other features.
In addition, the San Francisco-based company announced plans for its initial public offering on Wednesday. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Reddit said it reported net income of $18.5 million — its first profit in two years — in the October-December quarter on revenue of $249.8 million. The company said it plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RDDT.
The deal with Google is a big step for Reddit, which relies on sometimes controversial volunteer moderators to run its vast array of free-flowing, topic-based discussions. Those moderators have publicly protested past Reddit decisions, most recently blacking out much of the site for days as Reddit announced plans to charge many third-party apps for access to its content.
But it’s also of great importance to Google, which is hungry for access to human-written material that it can use to train its AI models to improve their “understanding” of the world and thus their ability to provide relevant answers to questions in a conversational format.
Google praised Reddit in a press release, calling it a repository for “an incredible breadth of authentic, human conversations and experiences” and emphasizing that the search giant’s primary goal is “to make it even easier for people to get that useful information.” taking advantage.”
Google downplayed its interest in using Reddit data to train its AI systems, instead highlighting how it will make it “even easier” for users to access Reddit information, such as product recommendations and travel advice, by route it through Google products.
It described this process as “more content-forward representations of Reddit information” that aims to both benefit Google’s tools and make it easier for people to participate in Reddit.