Reddit CEO Steve Huffman Says Google's AI Overviews Aren't Pulling Their Weight, Company May Ditch $60 Million Deal

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman used his company's latest earnings report to take a shot at Google, arguing that the search giant's AI Overviews feature isn't delivering value the way old-fashioned search links do.

In a letter to investors, Huffman wrote that "as the internet becomes flooded with synthetic content, people are craving real human perspective." He called Reddit "the antidote to an automated web," arguing that AI compresses the internet into summaries while Reddit offers "deep discussions, passionate debates, and lived experiences."

He went further in comments tied to the earnings report, according to Ars Technica. "What we see is, 10 blue links has driven tremendous value and growth to the broader ecosystem," Huffman said. "From where we sit, AI Overviews has yet to make a similar level of positive impact, and I think that's consistent across the broader landscape."

Reddit Has Skin in This Game

Huffman isn't a neutral observer here. Reddit has a licensing deal with Google worth roughly $60 million, and according to a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this month, Reddit is considering ending that arrangement. Reddit also has a separate licensing deal with OpenAI.

The Journal reported that other major publishers are weighing similar moves away from Google, including The Economist, Reuters, Politico, and USA Today. Companies don't usually air public grievances about a business partner unless they're also trying to extract better terms.

Reddit's stock has been under pressure, and Huffman's public criticism of Google lands at a moment when investors are already nervous about how AI search is reshaping referral traffic to sites like Reddit.

What the Data Actually Shows

Huffman's complaint isn't coming out of nowhere. A Pew Research study of 900 US adults, published last year, found that Google's AI Overviews cut click-through referrals to outside websites by almost half compared to standard search results. That's a serious number for any publisher that depends on search traffic for revenue.

Google disputes it. The company told Ars Technica that the Pew study "uses a flawed methodology and skewed queryset that is not representative of Search traffic," and said Google "consistently direct[s] billions of clicks to websites daily" without observing "significant drops in aggregate web traffic."

Google followed up with its own blog post arguing that "total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year."

So you've got a research organization saying referrals dropped nearly 50 percent, and Google saying total traffic is stable. Both claims can be technically true depending on how you slice the data. Pew measured click-through rates on individual queries; Google is talking about aggregate volume across all of Search, which includes plenty of query types AI Overviews doesn't touch. That's a meaningful distinction, and neither side's framing alone tells you the full picture.

The Bigger Fight

What's really going on is a fight over who controls the value of content on the internet. Publishers spend money and manpower producing original reporting, forum discussions, and analysis. Google's AI Overviews scrapes that content, summarizes it, and serves the answer directly to users, often without the user ever clicking through to the source.

If that trend holds, publishers lose ad revenue and subscription conversions while Google keeps users on its own platform longer. That's a legitimate economic concern, not manufactured outrage. It also explains why Reddit, which built its entire business model on user-generated content, is the company sounding the loudest alarm.

At the same time, it's fair to note that Reddit's specific complaint, that AI Overviews haven't produced a "win-win" for publishers, is an assertion from Huffman's earnings call, not an independently audited finding. Huffman gave no specific data backing that particular claim in the excerpts reported by Ars Technica.

No regulatory action or lawsuit has been filed over AI Overviews' effect on publisher traffic as of this writing. Whether Reddit actually walks away from its $60 million Google deal, and what other publishers named by the Journal, including The Economist, Reuters, Politico, and USA Today, ultimately decide, will show whether this is corporate posturing or the start of a broader publisher revolt against Google's AI search strategy.