Reddit May Sign Content Licensing Deal With Google For AI Training

Date: February 22, 2024

As per the secret sources, the social media platform Reddit is set to crack a deal with Google to allow its AI models to train on its vast content library.

Large Language Models have been trained on the scrapes of the internet, which may not help get the best results. With recent regulations in place, using the content of private businesses for training AI models has been strictly restricted. To increase the quality of its AI models intelligence, Google may be in the process of signing a content licensing agreement with Reddit. The news comes from three internal team members familiar with the matter who do not wish to disclose their identity to the public.

Reddit is a social media platform with over 850 million monthly users. The platform runs its own APIs to propagate content and restricts access to outside players. The vast content library backed by historical data of over a billion users is highly beneficial for Google’s AI model training. 

According to one of the sources, the contract that the two giants may finalize soon is worth $60 million per year. Reddit is already in the final stage of listing nearly 10% of its shares in the stock market. The tech giant has been preparing for 3 years and is now ready for a high-profile stock market IPO launch. According to two sources, the company may make an official announcement on Thursday. The company was valued at $10 billion in a funding round conducted in 2021 and may dilute a minimum of 10% of its shares in the offering. 

The deal underscores Reddit’s aim to generate new revenue streams and capture the currently dominated market of advertising dollars by top dogs like Meta and TikTok. Reddit and Google have declined to make any official comment on this matter. 

Last year, Reddit announced that it would charge businesses to access its API, which is the main means of distributing content. Apart from monetization against training purposes, Reddit may not experience other benefits by sharing its content library with Google. The report, if finalized, will become Reddit’s first reported deal with a big AI company. With the launch of Reddit’s IPO, the company will become the first social media giant to go public after Pinterest in 2019.