I’ll start this article with a confession as someone who’s worked in social media for many years (help! Long live Korean skincare!): Reddit has never really been used in our clients’ digital strategies.

We knew about it, we’d take a peek at it… but more as users than as consultants. A social media platform that’s a bit less “edutainment,” but still a place to find honest opinions—sometimes extremely polarized—based on peer relevance, where the feed algorithm plays a slightly less prominent role. But, deep down, it isn’t used that much.

Today it’s making a comeback, thanks in part to AI—not only because it offers a sort of “happy place” with a slightly more vintage feel (more like a blog than a feed full of constant video content), but also because of its connections with AI companies, which “draw” from these conversations to generate their responses.

The fact is that today it is undoubtedly a treasure trove of data waiting to be explored, and—given the changes AI is bringing to marketing—it reveals insights that professionals in this field simply cannot afford to ignore.

But “back in the spotlight”—to what extent? Let’s look at some numbers

It’s not just a hunch: Reddit has been publicly traded since March 2024, so we now have some official figures to look at. The latest results (second quarter of 2026) show 130.3 million daily active users, up 18% year-over-year, and 514.6 million weekly active users—surpassing the half-billion mark for the first time. To put that in perspective: two years ago, daily users numbered 91 million. That’s a 43% increase in twenty-four months for a platform that’s been around since 2005.

But how do we explain this growing interest? And above all, does AI have anything to do with it? 

On the one hand, in a web that risks being flooded with artificially generated content (or perhaps not—just “junk” content of little value), people seek refuge in useful content, and Reddit communities are certainly fertile ground for that. Fewer viral trends and algorithms, but plenty of real discussions and conversations.

On the other hand, AI companies themselves “feed” on Reddit: among its revenue streams is a data licensing category, with OpenAI and Google as its major partners, who pay to train their models on Reddit’s conversations. In practice, Reddit monetizes the same raw material—human conversations—twice, selling it to brands as an advertising context and to AI companies as knowledge. At the same time, AI conversation results are driving more and more users back to Reddit content (as has historically been the case with Google Search as well).

As Reddit conversations grow, social listening becomes more “predictive”

Social listening is changing the way we’ve known it for years: monitoring mentions, sentiment, conversations… we’ve always taken a backward-looking approach—analyzing what has already happened, measuring what has already been said—while placing less importance on more spontaneous and individual conversations, which are now more prevalent and easier to track thanks to Reddit.

Predictive social listening flips the perspective: it’s no longer (just) about analyzing what has happened and identifying trends, but about picking up on signs of what’s about to happen. And with AI now making it possible to analyze thousands of conversations, recognize patterns, and anticipate which topics will gain momentum, this scenario has become a viable practice.

Reddit's community-based structure fosters peer-to-peer discussion, free from brand influence and promotional intent. These are valuable conversations that often emerge there before reaching mainstream social media platforms.

And then Reddit has a voting system that helps increase the visibility of threads (and comments) based on how useful the community finds them: this, too, is valuable information worth noting. We’re not just listening to what people are saying, but also to what the community itself considers relevant.

Think of a recurring complaint about a product defect that gains traction in a niche subreddit: weeks later, it becomes a mainstream issue or a crisis.

How do I do that? 

These days, there are so many tools that let us explore Reddit communities the old-fashioned way.

But here’s a piece of news that not everyone may be aware of: Reddit has launched Reddit Pro, which is free for businesses, featuring a “Trends” section that tracks keywords and uses AI to analyze the context and sentiment of discussions. To start listening to what people are saying about your industry, the barrier to entry is practically zero—aside from letting AI help us, of course. 

In short, we simply have more tools at our disposal: not only can we “measure what has happened,” but today, thanks to AI, we can also “anticipate what is about to happen.”

But now I want you to be honest: are any of you on Reddit (even though, yes, I know, Reddit isn't as big in Italy as other social media platforms yet, but I hope it can be useful for those who work in international markets or want to explore new areas)?

Data sources: Reddit Inc.'s official Q2 2026 results, investor.redditinc.com, CNBC, July 30, 2026.

Anna Segato
Co-Founder of FAIRFLAI and Instructor for the Future Ready Digital Marketing Master’s Program