Reddit will shift to a primarily logged-in experience after Google’s AI-powered search sharply reduced the traffic it sends to the platform, chief executive Steve Huffman said on Thursday, in the most dramatic change to the site in its two decades of open browsing.
The announcement came on Reddit’s third-quarter earnings call, where Huffman blamed Google’s AI search features for a steep drop in referrals. Search engine referrals to Reddit fell by more than one million on average each week during October, he said.
“Google is crawling us as hard as ever, so the demand hasn’t changed from their point of view either. The reality is, the AI mode does not drive traffic, not for us and not to anybody,” Huffman said on the post-earnings call.
What is changing
Reddit has allowed anyone to browse most of its content without an account for around 20 years. Under the new plan, the company will move to a primarily logged-in experience, starting with tests in select markets outside the United States in the fourth quarter before any wider rollout.
Huffman framed the shift as both a defence against data scraping and a business decision. Logged-in users account for more than 80% of Reddit’s monetisation, and a signed-in audience gives the company more signals for advertising targeting and generally higher engagement, he said.
“I don’t know about you, but as someone whose life has been defined by the open internet, it’s a big change for me,” Huffman wrote in a shareholder letter. “But I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the right decision for our platform and the right decision for our business.”
The company said the change will not happen overnight, and it is still working out exactly when logged-out visitors will hit a sign-in wall.
The numbers behind the decision
Reddit’s global daily active users were flat quarter on quarter in the third quarter at 130.3 million. In the United States, daily active users fell to 50.7 million from 53.2 million in the second quarter, down 2% year on year — the first US decline since Reddit went public in 2024.
Huffman warned that if the referral trend continues, total daily active users could fall by a low-double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter from about 130 million. A hypothetical decline of 10% to 12% would imply roughly 115 million to 117 million daily users, though the company has not forecast a specific figure.
Shares of Reddit fell 18% in extended trading after the warning.
Why AI search is the trigger
AI-powered search answers users’ questions directly, cutting off the clicks that once flowed to publishers and social platforms. Reddit is far from alone: the shift to AI summaries has hit most websites, and Google itself has acknowledged that its AI Mode queries earn less per query than traditional search.
For Reddit, the squeeze is twofold. Google still crawls its pages heavily — feeding AI answers and training data — but sends fewer visitors back. The company licenses its data to Google and OpenAI, a Google deal reportedly worth about $60 million a year, and has sued Anthropic, Perplexity AI and three data-scraping companies, accusing them of illegally collecting its content.
“Requiring users to log in creates another barrier to engagement, particularly for casual users,” said Luke Stillman, a managing director at research firm Madison and Wall.
What happens next
Reddit will test the logged-in experience in markets outside the US in the fourth quarter and assess the impact before expanding it. The company is betting that a smaller but signed-in audience, combined with licensing deals for its data, is worth more than the open traffic it is losing to AI search.
Whether other large platforms follow Reddit behind a login wall will be one of the clearest tests of how the AI-search era reshapes the open web.
Frequently asked questions
Is Reddit becoming fully login-only?
Not immediately. Reddit says it is moving to a primarily logged-in experience, starting with tests in select markets outside the US in the fourth quarter.
Why is Reddit doing this now?
Search referrals fell by more than one million a week on average in October, which Huffman blames on Google’s AI search features, and the company wants to curb AI scraping of its content.
Will this affect existing Reddit users?
Users who already have accounts and stay signed in should see little change; the shift mainly affects logged-out visitors browsing without an account.
Sources:
- Reuters, “Reddit puts logged in experience first as Google AI hits traffic,” October 29, 2026 (via The Hindu and syndication)
- TechCrunch, “As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience,” October 29, 2026
- Engadget, “Reddit will force users to log in as AI is killing search traffic,” October 29, 2026
Related coverage: Reach warned of a Google traffic slump at the Daily Mirror’s publisher.
