Headline & intro
Reddit has finally decided to cash in on something users have done there for years: ask strangers what to buy. The company is testing an AI-powered shopping layer on top of search that turns community recommendations into product carousels with prices and buy buttons.
The move looks obvious from a revenue perspective, but far less obvious from a trust and UX angle. In this piece, we’ll look at what exactly Reddit is testing, why search is suddenly its new growth story, how this fits into the wider AI‑commerce race, and why European regulators are likely to have strong opinions once this rolls out globally.
The news in brief
According to TechCrunch, Reddit has started a limited test in the U.S. of an AI-driven shopping feature embedded in search. A small subset of users who search for commercial queries such as “best noise-canceling headphones” will now see an interactive product carousel appended to the results.
Those carousels show images, prices and direct purchase links from Reddit’s shopping and advertising partners. The twist is that the products are meant to come from items explicitly mentioned and recommended in relevant Reddit threads and comments, not just from a generic ad catalogue.
The test builds on Reddit’s earlier Dynamic Product Ads, launched last year, which already targeted users with personalised product suggestions. It also leans on Reddit’s AI search investments: CEO Steve Huffman recently told investors that weekly search users grew from around 60 million to 80 million year-on-year, while the AI-powered “Reddit Answers” feature jumped from roughly 1 million to 15 million weekly users across 2025.
Why this matters
Reddit has long been the “shadow review site” of the internet. People already append “reddit” to Google searches precisely because they trust human back-and-forth more than polished marketing pages. Turning that behaviour into a native, AI-enhanced shopping interface is both strategically smart and extremely risky.
The upside is obvious. If users are already using Reddit as a research layer before buying on Amazon, Etsy or a local retailer, Reddit is giving itself a chance to keep more of that value: ad spend, affiliate fees, maybe even one‑day native checkout. For brands, this is gold: surfacing their products exactly at the moment of high intent, backed by real user testimonials.
The downside is subtle but existential. Reddit’s moat is authenticity. If product carousels feel even slightly pay‑to‑play, users will assume that “top‑recommended” really means “top‑paying.” Once that perception hardens, the value of Reddit’s recommendations declines, and the new ad format starts to cannibalise the very trust it’s built on.
There’s also an AI‑specific risk: ranking and summarising messy human conversations into clean product tiles inevitably flattens nuance. A thread that says “this works, but only if you’re okay with mediocre battery life and terrible customer service” might still generate a shiny card with a 4‑star‑ish vibe. If users feel AI is sanitising or cherry‑picking the conversation, pushback will come fast.
Commercially, though, this is Reddit signalling that search – not just feeds and subreddits – is the next big battlefield for its business, and that it wants a slice of the product‑search pie that Google and Amazon have owned for years.
The bigger picture
Reddit’s experiment sits at the intersection of two big trends: AI‑assisted shopping and the “platformification” of search.
Firstly, everyone is racing to turn conversations into checkouts. TikTok has TikTok Shop deeply embedded in its feed, Instagram has shoppable posts, and OpenAI rolled out an “Instant Checkout” that lets users buy Etsy and Shopify products directly inside ChatGPT, as TechCrunch also notes. Amazon itself is building AI layers that summarise reviews and answer product questions. The pattern is clear: platforms want to collapse the window between discovery, recommendation and purchase.
Secondly, search is no longer a Google monopoly in the minds of users. People search inside TikTok for restaurants, inside Reddit for troubleshooting and product advice, inside Amazon for “best X under $100.” Reddit’s own numbers – 80 million weekly search users and fast‑growing AI Answers usage – show the platform increasingly sees itself as a vertical search engine for “things real people actually use.”
Historically, we’ve seen what happens when community platforms over‑monetise trust. Think of how Facebook’s news feed pivot to branded content and Pages ultimately devalued organic reach. Or how Amazon’s review ecosystem became polluted with incentivised reviews and opaque “Amazon’s Choice” badges. The lesson: the moment users feel the recommendation system serves the advertiser first and the user second, they adapt – by ignoring the widgets, changing behaviour, or moving elsewhere.
Compared to Google’s product search, Reddit has an edge in depth of discussion but a weakness in structure. AI is the glue Reddit hopes will convert that messy corpus into something brands can pay for and users will still accept. Whether it works depends less on model quality and more on product design, transparency and restraint.
The European / regional angle
From a European perspective, Reddit’s AI shopping search touches several sensitive nerves at once: profiling, recommender transparency and AI governance.
Under GDPR, using behavioural data and post histories to infer shopping intent and build personalised carousels requires a solid legal basis and clear user controls. If the feature expands to the EU, Reddit will need to show that these AI‑driven recommendations and ads honour consent settings and give users a meaningful way to opt out of targeted profiling.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) raises the bar further for a platform of Reddit’s size. It obliges large platforms to explain how recommender systems work, provide parameters users can tweak, and label advertising clearly. An AI box that mixes “community‑recommended” with “partner‑provided” products without crystal‑clear labelling would be inviting regulatory trouble.
Then there’s the EU AI Act, which – while not singling out this exact use case – sets expectations around transparency and risk management for AI systems that shape consumer decisions. An AI module that nudges users toward certain merchants sits squarely in the “you must be able to explain this” category.
For European retailers and marketplaces, Reddit’s move is double‑edged. On one hand, it creates a new discovery channel beyond Google Shopping and local comparison sites like Idealo, Heureka or Ceneo. On the other, if Reddit primarily onboards large U.S. partners, it could further marginalise smaller EU merchants in high‑intent product searches, especially for tech, gaming and hobbyist gear where Reddit communities are strongest.
Looking ahead
Expect three phases if this test shows promising metrics.
In the short term (next 6–12 months), Reddit will likely expand the test to more U.S. users, add more verticals (travel, SaaS tools, maybe local services) and iterate on ranking signals – balancing upvotes, comment sentiment, and commercial partnerships. This is where we’ll see whether Reddit can resist the temptation to overweight paying partners.
In the medium term, a global rollout becomes plausible, including Europe. That’s when DSA and GDPR compliance work will have to be fully baked in: clearer labels (“ads”, “community picks”), explainable filters, and possibly separate toggles for “show me shopping results powered by AI.” Expect localisation gaps too – many European languages have thinner Reddit content, which will limit how compelling the product feels outside English and a handful of big markets.
Longer term, if engagement and revenue look healthy, Reddit has two obvious options. One is deeper integration with partners – affiliate revenue sharing and "buy now" flows that minimise friction. The other is building more of the stack itself: native checkout or marketplace‑style features that capture transaction margin, not just ad spend. The first is easier and regulator‑friendly; the second is higher‑risk but strategically attractive.
Open questions remain. Will moderators push back if their communities feel turned into shopping funnels? Will users demand a “search without commercial overlays” mode? And can Reddit maintain its positioning as the place for brutally honest opinions if more of those opinions end up sitting under product tiles with trackable click‑through rates?
The bottom line
Reddit’s AI shopping search is a logical attempt to monetise what users already do on the platform: ask for product advice and act on it. Done with transparency and restraint, it could finally give Google and Amazon serious competition for research‑driven purchases. Done clumsily, it risks eroding the authenticity that makes Reddit valuable in the first place. As AI turns more of our conversations into shopping prompts, the real question for Reddit – and for regulators, especially in Europe – is simple: who is the recommender system truly optimised for, the user or the advertiser?
