Renewal talks over a reported $60 million-a-year AI licensing deal come as Reddit reassesses search traffic losses tied to Google’s AI summaries ahead of its July 30 earnings report.
Reddit is reconsidering whether Google should continue accessing its content for artificial intelligence use as the companies negotiate a renewal of a reported $60 million-a-year licensing agreement that is ending soon. Reddit shares fell 9% on Wednesday and are down roughly 19% year-to-date. The 2024 deal allows Google to train its AI models on Reddit’s content, but the company is re-evaluating the arrangement as Google surfaces more AI-generated summaries in search, a shift publishers say is cutting traffic to original websites. The Wall Street Journal reported traffic declines including a 23% drop for Politico, about 25% for CNN and more than 85% for Business Insider between June 2025 and 2026. Reddit also has a similar partnership with OpenAI as part of its data licensing business, which helped drive a first-quarter earnings beat with revenue up 69% from a year earlier to $663 million and earnings per share of $1.01 versus expectations of 58 cents. CEO Huffman said on the earnings call that Reddit’s partnerships with Google and OpenAI are important and mutually meaningful. The company is set to report second-quarter earnings on July 30.