SAN FRANCISCO: Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant’s artificial intelligence models, three people familiar with the matter said.
The contract with Alphabet-owned Google is worth about $60 million a year, according to one of the sources.
The deal underscores how Reddit, which is preparing for a high-profile stock market listing, is trying to generate new revenue amid stiff competition for ad dollars from the likes of TikTok and Facebook’s Meta Platform.
The sources were not authorized to speak to the media and declined to be identified.
Reddit and Google declined to comment.
Bloomberg previously reported on the Reddit content without naming the buyer.
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Last year, Reddit said it would charge companies to access its application programming interface (API) — the means by which it distributes its content. The deal with Google is its first announced deal with a major AI company.
San Francisco-based Reddit, which has been eyeing the stock market for more than three years, is preparing for an initial public offering this week that would detail its financial results for the first time to potential IPO investors.
The filing could be available as early as Thursday, two sources said.
The company, which was valued at around $10 billion in a 2021 funding round, is seeking to sell about 10% of its shares in the offering, Reuters previously reported.
Reddit’s launch would mark the first IPO of a major social media company since Pinterest, which went public in 2019.
AI modelers have been busy in recent months striking deals with content owners to diversify their training data beyond the bulk of the internet. This practice is fraught with potential copyright issues, as many content creators have claimed that their content has been used without permission.
Founded in 2005 by web developer Steve Huffman and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Reddit is known for its numerous niche newsgroups, some of which boast tens of millions of members.
