Reddit Strikes $60M AI Content Deal with Google Ahead of Anticipated IPO

Social media platform Reddit has reached an agreement with Google and has launched a new portal where its content can be used to train the search engine giant's artificial intelligence models, a new report claimed.

Reddit in AI Content Licensing Deal with Google

The contract's annual value with Alphabet-owned Google is approximately $60 million, per source, Reuters reported.

The agreement highlights the strategic approach Reddit took in anticipation of a significant stock market debut to generate additional income in the face of intense competition for advertising budgets from platforms such as TikTok and Meta's Facebook.

The unlicensed sources declined to provide their identities to the media.
Google and Reddit both declined to comment.

Prior to this, Reddit's content agreement was reported by Bloomberg without specifying the purchaser.

Reddit announced a year ago that it would impose a fee on businesses for access to its application programming interface (API), allowing for its content distribution. The agreement with Google is reportedly the company's first with a major AI corporation.

Reddit Eyes IPO, Set to Reveal Financials in Landmark Stock Market Debut

San Francisco-based organization Reddit, which has been considering stock flotation for over three years, will file for its initial public offering this week, which will provide prospective IPO investors with its financial information for the first time.

Two sources claimed the filing may become available by Thursday. According to a previous report by Reuters, approximately 10% of the company's shares are being offered in the offering. The funding round in 2021 valued the company at approximately $10 billion.

The IPO of Reddit would be the first of its kind by a significant social media company since Pinterest began offering its shares on the market in 2019.

In recent months, AI model developers have been actively securing agreements with content proprietors in an effort to diversify their training data beyond massive internet scrapings. This practice is fraught with possible copyright infringement concerns, as numerous content creators have complained about unauthorized use of their work.

Established in 2005 by entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian and web developer Steve Huffman, Reddit is renowned for its plethora of specialized discussion groups, with certain groups having amassed tens of millions of subscribers.

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