Reddit and OpenAI to work together in future

The software company OpenAI and the social news aggregator Reddit will be working together in future. The companies announced this in an official announcement. On paper, both partners benefit from the cooperation.

The exact terms of the collaboration are not yet publicly known. Both companies emphasise that they are committed to protecting user privacy and adhering to ethical AI practices. OpenAI will also become an advertising partner of Reddit.

Benefits for OpenAI

For OpenAI, the cooperation with Reddit offers a valuable source of data to refine its algorithms and provide better content. Reddit has an extensive collection of discussions on a variety of topics that can be used to improve AI systems. In future, user contributions from Reddit will be played out in real time on the AI chatbot ChatGPT. For example, discussions from yesterday will be available as information in the AI today.

Advantages for Reddit

Reddit, for its part, wants to use OpenAI's AI technologies to improve its own platform. This could be done, for example, through improved search functions or automated answers to user questions.

The impact of this cooperation on Reddit users is still unclear and will depend on the exact implementation of the agreement. However, it is a notable step in the development of AI and online community platforms. Reddit shares rose by up to 15 per cent in after-hours trading.

Deal between Google and Reddit at the end of February

At the end of February, Google had previously purchased access to Reddit's content for 60 million US dollars. This deal was not the only reason for Reddit's massive increase in visibility in the USA, but also in Europe. Google now favours search results from the social media platform for many search queries. According to Seo-Südwest, Reddit's visibility score in the USA is said to have risen from 77 at the end of July last year to 963 at the end of February this year.

Reddit's visibility score in the USA is said to have risen from 77 at the end of July last year to 963 at the end of February this year.

Criticism of Google's deal with Reddit

Critical voices say that Reddit was already strongly represented in the Google index. Google's AI Gemini had already been trained with data from Reddit for some time. The deal therefore does not provide an additional flow of data, but merely facilitates access and creates legal certainty. In addition, many users in the USA criticise the fact that web searches now mainly consist of results from Reddit.

In general, manufacturers of AI models have been increasingly looking for training data in a wide variety of ways in recent months in order to diversify their systems and models. In doing so, they do not shy away from illegally accessing various sources.