People are finally using Reddit’s search

After being harried by complaints that its search function needed improving, Reddit has in the last few years invested in its search engine, and has even added AI features to help its users find what they’re looking for. It appears that investment is finally paying off: The company has seen a 30% year-on-year jump in the number of people using search every week, CEO Steve Huffman said on Thursday. Huffman noted that search has been one of the major drivers of user acquisition and retention for the platform. “On search, we have seen great performance. Search DAUs, WAUs, and queries are up meaningfully year-over-year. It’s a great driver of retention and DAUs. The search team is, quite frankly, I think doing a great job. If you use Reddit Answers, you can see it is better integrated into the product,” he said on the company’s first-quarter post-results conference call. Earlier in February, the platform started testing product placement through AI search results in the U.S. Huffman said that around 40% of conversations on Reddit are commercial in nature, and 84% shoppers feel more confident in their buying decisions after researching on Reddit. The social platform ended the quarter with more than