One of the many fascinating quirks emerging from data about how AI search works is the extent to which our dear bot friends really like Reddit. 

I mean, it appears they like it even more than we do.

On Perplexity, SearchGPT and Google’s AI mode, it’s in the top three most-cited domains for any search.

When you think about what Reddit is, or at least was, to most of us (i.e. somewhere to find heated debate about something incredibly inconsequential) that’s extraordinary, and I think, quite funny.

But it also really matters.

It’s further proof that in this mad new world, the foundations of it (AI) are still built on innately human activity. 

Ultimately, Reddit is trusted and used by AI because it doesn’t look and feel like AI. It looks like real, authentic, often unhinged human beings doing what they do best – sharing what they think without filter or editing.

There are some direct and practical implications of this fascinating revelation for retailers – but I also think there’s a much bigger lesson too.

Don’t smash the golden egg

What’s pretty certain about all of this is that many brands around the world are getting found because unpaid, unaffiliated individuals have decided to jump on Reddit threads to praise them.

That’s a scenario somewhere close to the holy grail of modern commerce.

However, if I know anything about big brands it’s that when they notice a good thing, they tend not to be able to calmly assess the good thing before deciding what to do about it, if anything.

Instead, they often tend to think “how can we rapidly multiply this good thing as quickly and easily as possible” which leads to what, for the purpose of this article, we can loosely describe as dogshit.

Brands turn good things into dogshit a lot – they’re excellent at it. And usually the result is that authenticity gets squeezed out. Think paid influencers, reviews that are edited, removed or incentivised, and now straight-up AI generated content.

But the beauty of Reddit is its innate, and largely untouched humanity. As yet, it simply hasn’t been overrun by AI like so much of everything else on the internet.

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