Reddit is turning to passkeys as a core defence against bots on the platform, positioning them as both a security and growth lever. Steven Huffman, Reddit’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said during the company’s Q1FY26 earnings call that passkeys are “the lightest-weight and most privacy- and user-acceptable way of doing human verification” and “a more secure way of logging in, an easier way of logging in”. He added that the move will “help us just grow login users in general” while strengthening bot defences. “All of this work is underway,” Huffman said, adding that more features are expected this quarter.
What Reddit said about bots: Huffman framed bot control as both a transparency and safety issue. “We have what we call good bots on Reddit,” he said, referring to the tools moderators use to run communities. Reddit is shifting these to its developer platform so they can be “labeled on Reddit more transparently” while allowing the company to “batten down the hatches more on unauthorized bot usage.” He said this is “part of the human verification and defense of Reddit.”
AI and ads: Jennifer Wong, Reddit’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), said AI is central to Reddit’s ad stack. “Our strategy is to integrate more automation and AI into our ad stack,” she said, pointing to Reddit Max, which “launched to beta in early Q1”.
Wong said advertisers are seeing “a 17% reduction in cost per action and 25% more conversion outcomes” on Max campaigns, with “about 50% of Max campaign advertisers using AI-powered creative features”.
Despite this push, Wong said Reddit is not chasing higher ad density. “Our strategy is not to increase ad load,” she said, noting it remains “quite low compared to peers”. Instead, Reddit is focused on making “the value of every impression more valuable” through machine learning, better targeting, and more advertiser competition.
AI tools: what Reddit has launched and is building
- Machine translation: Huffman said machine translation has driven recent growth, noting Reddit is “translated into 30 languages today” and can now scale further after lowering costs.
- Reddit Answers and AI search: Huffman said its AI search tool is “a great driver of retention” and “a driver of DAUq”. Reddit Answers now shows “more agentic behavior behind the scenes”, allowing comparisons of options, and is being integrated with product listings. “Search WAUqs are up 30% year-over-year,” he said.
- Post guidance and safety: Huffman described “post guidance” as “an LLM that basically helps the user navigate the rules of Reddit”. He added that Reddit is deploying “better AI-powered spam protection” while easing barriers such as age and karma limits.
- Reddit Pro for publishers: Wong said publishers can now “auto-import articles, receive AI-powered community recommendations on where to share them, and…
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