Reddit, the social media giant known for its vast and diverse array of user-generated content, has recently announced the launch of a new AI-powered search tool called Reddit Answers. This addition to the platform aims to enhance the user experience by delivering faster, more accurate answers to questions posed within Reddit’s community forums (known as subreddits).
It's no secret that information from Reddit is highly coveted by users as it brings a diverse human perspective to the table. Other companies like Google and OpenAI often provide information from Reddit in their answers. So, it makes sense that Reddit wants to get in on action, especially when it's their own data.
Reddit Answers involves an AI-powered conversational interface, similar to other chatbots. You can send a question in natural language to Reddit Answers. It will then present you with curated summaries of relevant conversations and details across Reddit. You can also expect to find relevant snippets or inline answers from the Reddit posts in the generated summary.
It will also contain links to the Reddit posts it used to curate the answer so you can verify, dive deep, and discover relevant communities. Users can also ask follow-up questions of their own or select from suggested follow-up questions.
The feature is initially rolling out to only a limited number of users in the United States. The company says it plans to bring it to more users and locations in the future. If you want, you can sign up to be notified when the feature is available for you through this link.
Once the feature becomes widely available, it'll be interesting to see how it stacks up against other chat-based search engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, or even against Google, where searchers often add "Reddit" to their queries when in need of human perspectives.
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