Once a niche, unmoderated corner of the internet for male gamers and developers, Reddit has become one of the fastest-growing social platforms, appealing to all kinds of users. When I asked friends in my WhatsApp groups why it attracts millennial women, one said, “It’s the source of all knowledge and free of influencers.” Another shared, “I use it because it’s real people; ChatGPT feels soulless and makes me sad.” A third added, “I like how old-school it is—it feels separate from ads, image overload, and influencing.”
In an era where consumers feel constantly marketed to, Reddit’s COO Jen Wong attributes the platform’s steady 20-year growth to its reputation as a more private, trustworthy, and authentic space online. It’s also becoming an antidote to automated social algorithms and AI. “People like that you’re not influenced by just one person or brand, but by a group offering diverse perspectives on things they genuinely care about and know,” Wong explains. “As the world leans more into AI and moves away from human connection, the value of human intelligence on Reddit stands out even more.”
This sentiment is reflected in Reddit’s recent annual results. Globally, daily active users grew 19% over the past year to over 121 million, far outpacing Meta’s 7% growth. This expansion is widespread; in the UK alone, monthly active users surged 88% in two years, surpassing TikTok. In both the UK and the US, women now make up more than 50% of Reddit’s rapidly growing user base, with Wong noting the platform is evenly balanced across age groups and other demographics as well.
“We started with a tech guy slant, but now it’s very gender-balanced. In fact, in the UK and Australia, the majority are women,” she says. “Looking at the last couple of years, our high-growth areas have been fashion, beauty, TV fandom, and parenting—universal life topics, so there’s no overall demographic skew.”
Since its IPO in March 2024, Reddit has also benefited significantly from the AI boom, albeit somewhat accidentally. The large language models (LLMs) behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT are trained on real-world data, making Reddit’s vast archive of human conversations since 2005 a crucial resource for companies like OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity as they enhance their AI products. Conversely, users are increasingly turning to Reddit’s detailed, human-driven subreddits as an alternative to those very AI platforms.
“Reddit contrasts with the massive growth of AI as the most human place on the internet,” says Wong. “It turns out AI doesn’t know anything unless humans provide the information; it has to learn from us. So now, with search evolving toward LLMs, the authentic, fresh conversations on Reddit are valued by both ordinary users and AI search.”
An Engaged Fashion Community
A key driver to Reddit’s treasure trove of human conversation is pre-purchase product validation. According to the platform’s research, in the UK, 74% of people who discover a product online eventually come to Reddit to validate or research that purchase further.
As it happens, fashion and beauty are among the top interests for Reddit’s growing consumer base. In 2024, fashion and beauty posts on Reddit increased by 150% year-on-year, as people sought honest reviews and trusted feedback from fellow consumers that they felt might be lacking elsewhere. For example, four out of five UK Reddit users looking to buy fashion orAccording to Reddit’s research, 76% of its U.S. users believe posts on the platform are more honest and truthful than on other social media, and 78% of those planning to buy beauty products in the next three months say Reddit conversations make them feel more confident in their purchases.
People are turning to Reddit not just for trusted, human insights to validate purchases, but also for a sense of community with fellow fashion and beauty enthusiasts. Globally, beauty conversations on Reddit have grown 71% year-over-year, as it becomes a go-to place for fans to connect, analyze ingredients, and share unique discoveries and recommendations. Popular communities include r/SkincareAddiction, with over two million weekly visitors; its luxury counterpart r/SkincareAddictionLux, with over 165,000 weekly visitors; and the UK’s r/fashion, which has more than 360,000 members and grew over 198% last year.
Users typically spend much more time on Reddit’s detailed discussion threads than on the short-form content of rival platforms. This gives Reddit a unique advantage in reaching high-intent purchasers. “Fashion and beauty are growing naturally on our platform, and these categories are taking notice,” says COO Jen Wong. “That makes it a very natural area for us to focus our partnerships.”
A Booming Advertising Business
Despite its authentic, non-commercial reputation, Reddit is not ad-free. In fact, advertising drove the platform’s 69% revenue growth to $2.2 billion in 2025, Wong says. Ads accounted for 95% ($690 million) of its $726 million in fourth-quarter revenue that year. Like other social platforms, Reddit turned to advertising to monetize its scaled user base, hiring Wong in 2018 to grow this business. Ads on Reddit are designed to blend in with organic posts and can appear in user feeds (like the home feed, popular feeds, and within subreddits) as well as directly inside comment threads.
“I think there’s a bit of a myth that because Reddit is such an authentic space, Redditors don’t like ads. But I don’t think that’s true,” says Wong.
Since its IPO, the company has accelerated its advertising push, launching new ad formats and products so brands can engage more effectively. It started with Reddit Pro in 2024, a free insights platform for brands to monitor their presence in conversations before they begin posting.
“When I joined eight years ago, we believed Reddit had incredible raw materials for an advertising business,” Wong says. She notes that agencies and brands use Reddit insights for broader “internet listening,” and that many advertising creatives get their ideas from the platform because it’s “the heart of internet culture.”
In the last year, Reddit has rolled out various ad formats across text, video, images, and carousels, positioning itself as a solid marketing platform for image-conscious fashion and beauty brands.
“Fashion and beauty brands have been coming to us to advertise because our engagement is very deep and you can convey a lot more information, which is pretty unique,” Wong says. She highlights the opportunity for luxury brand storytelling within Reddit’s longer post format. “We have formats where you can go deep into product features or write about a product’s inspiration—people on Reddit will read a thousand-plus words in your ad.”Luxury brands often tell their stories on platforms with highly visual interfaces, while Reddit has traditionally been seen as a more anonymous, text-heavy space. However, Reddit’s COO Jen Wong notes that the platform is naturally becoming more visual, with users increasingly sharing images and carousels in threads. Her team is supporting this shift by introducing more multimedia ad formats.
In late 2025, Reddit launched Video Views, a tool that lets brands target users most likely to watch their videos fully or for at least six seconds—a higher threshold than the three-second standard on many other platforms. Wong emphasizes that even though Reddit wasn’t originally video-focused, users are responding well to video ads, making it a dominant format for advertising.
That same November, Reddit introduced Interactive Ads, allowing brands to run engaging formats like countdowns and quizzes in feeds and threads. For example, MAC Cosmetics launched its first Reddit ad in January with a thread asking users which product should be brought back, followed by an “ask me anything” session that garnered over six million views.
Reddit is also testing verified brand profiles, where companies can host their own threads.
Engaging Authentically
For fashion and beauty brands, the key is balancing storytelling with maintaining user trust. Reddit attracts users seeking a less commercial, more anonymous space. A 2025 survey found that 65% of Gen Z users turn to Reddit for product discovery, valuing its privacy and anonymity. Overloading the platform with ads could alienate these users, but Wong believes relevance and native execution can strike the right balance.
She argues that Redditors don’t dislike ads—they just want them to be relevant and helpful. Unlike some platforms, Reddit doesn’t track off-site behavior but uses its own AI to analyze user activity within subreddits and threads, providing brands with data to tailor their ads.
Wong advises brands to start by listening to existing conversations, then experiment with engaging formats like answering user questions in threads. She highlights that luxury brands, in particular, can benefit from the post-purchase discussions that thrive on Reddit, encouraging them to view the platform as the opposite of traditional social media—where engagement begins with conversation, not just a branded profile.Instead of just posting content, brands on Reddit need to listen, educate, and engage in two-way conversations. This reflects a broader trend among younger consumers who are moving toward platforms that allow for co-creation, rather than passive scrolling.
“Reddit is built for anonymity, so brands are expected to engage authentically within existing communities,” says Jen Wong, Reddit’s COO. She notes that this interactive approach is especially valuable for luxury brands, where purchases involve more consideration.
Mac Cosmetics’ global creative director, Nicola Formichetti, explains that his team collaborated with Reddit to develop a strategy that would allow the brand to blend in like a regular user. “We recognized that Reddit users value authenticity and dislike overt commercialization,” he says. The team spent months observing relevant subreddits to understand the platform’s culture before participating.
“Rather than repurposing standard marketing material, we created content specifically for Reddit, focusing on conversation and adding value instead of promotion,” Formichetti continues. “The key is to join discussions users already care about, share expertise, and engage in genuine dialogue. Our biggest lesson has been that tone is crucial—we aim to sound human, transparent, and helpful, always prioritizing value over promotional messaging to build trust over time.”
Wong also points out that fashion brands can tap into post-purchase conversations on the platform. “In an e-commerce-driven world, people want details like a watch’s weight or craftsmanship,” she says, citing the detailed discussions among luxury watch enthusiasts on subreddits like r/Watchexchange. “But what’s particularly interesting for luxury is the post-purchase engagement,” she adds. For example, a new Rolex owner might ask for advice on polishing or accessorizing their watch—moments that present opportunities for brands to connect.
Reddit’s AI-Powered Shopping Future
Recently, AI platforms have joined Meta and TikTok in integrating shopping features, allowing users to research, discover, and purchase products seamlessly. Reddit entered this space last year with its first shoppable ad product, Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs).
Wong explains that DPAs use contextual signals from conversations to match products with users based on their activity on the platform. These ads can display product catalogs and image carousels in Reddit’s main feeds or within comment sections, redirecting users to the brand’s site to complete a purchase. Currently, these shoppable ads are only available in Reddit’s main feeds, but Wong suggests they could eventually be integrated into Reddit’s AI chat feature, Reddit Answers, as users become more accustomed to shopping within AI search tools.
“In this ever-changing landscape, who knows?” Wong says. “We’re developing our shopping capabilities, and shopping is at the core of search. It all comes down to creating a better, more robust shopping experience on Reddit in the future.”h provides users with AI-generated answers that draw from existing Reddit threads and conversations, clearly marked as AI responses. “I mention this because as we expand this AI-powered layer on Reddit, we currently don’t have ads on that page, and it presents an interesting opportunity for shopping,” Wong explains. “Take a query like ‘What are the best running shoes?’—that’s a scenario we often consider for improving the user experience. Users might want to see product options. So, I believe new possibilities are emerging to enhance the Reddit Shop experience. We don’t have specific details to share yet, but it’s definitely something we’re exploring.”
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Reddits Efforts to Counter AIDriven Shopping Trends
Beginner General Questions
1 What does AIdriven shopping trends mean
It refers to the way AI tools are increasingly used to find products get reviews and make purchase decisions often bypassing traditional humanled research on forums and social media
2 Why is Reddit trying to counter this
Reddits value is built on authentic human conversation and communitydriven advice If AI tools simply scrape and summarize Reddit content without users visiting the site it hurts community engagement reduces ad revenue and can strip context from recommendations
3 How is AI affecting shopping on Reddit
People are using AI assistants to ask Whats the best laptop under 1000 instead of searching or posting in subreddits like rSuggestALaptop The AI might pull answers from Reddit but the user never joins the discussion asks followups or contributes
4 What is Reddit actually doing about it
Reddits main strategy is through its licensing agreements with AI companies By charging for access to its vast data for AI training it aims to control and monetize how its content is used ensuring Reddit remains a viable platform where these conversations happen
Benefits Goals
5 Whats in it for Reddit users
The goal is to protect the quality and authenticity of communities If Reddit thrives users continue to get real nuanced advice from people with firsthand experience not just AIgenerated summaries that might be outdated or lack critical details
6 Does this mean Reddit is antiAI
Not exactly Reddit is propartnership It wants AI companies to pay to fairly use its data which provides funding that can improve the site for users and respect the contributions of its communities
Common Problems Concerns
7 Wont this just make AI tools worse for users
If implemented poorly it could limit access to helpful information Reddits bet is that by forming proper partnerships AI tools can provide attributed and potentially more current Reddit insights with a link back to the source thread for deeper context
8 Could this lead to Reddit shutting out regular search engines like Google
No This primarily targets largescale data scraping for AI