Reddit, OpenAI challenge Google with new releases

Reddit Answers

Although Google continues to dominate the overall search market, other alternatives, notably the generative AI search platform Perplexity AI, are gaining popularity.

Meanwhile, Reddit changed its data usage terms in April after it noticed AI vendors using data from the platform to train their AI systems.

The platform started to charge for data usage.

Reddit has also gained popularity in the past year, appearing frequently not only on Google search but also on Perplexity and Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Reddit Answers is the news platform's next step. It enables users to ask questions and get answers through a new AI-powered conversational interface. It also provides summaries of relevant conversations and details.

Reddit Answers takes advantage of Reddit’s mass of data and users’ voices, said Nikhil Lai, an analyst at Forrester Research.

"Reddit's voice of the customer has been taken advantage of by some of the bigger search engines," Lai said. “This is a defensive strategy, and it's necessary for Reddit to deepen its moat and keep people on Reddit, instead of having to go to Google or being on Perplexity to get Reddit data."

A differentiator for Reddit is that it allows users to act how they want and express their personalities, Lai said.

"We've seen Reddit rank higher and higher on Google because there's so much natural language on Reddit, and the language expressed on Reddit is authentic, and Google rewards authentic, authoritative, natural-sounding language," he said.

However, one hurdle Reddit faces if it wants users to access it directly versus through Google or Perplexity is its level of accuracy and relevance.

"It's easy to underestimate how good Google's machine learning is," Lai said, noting that Google's machine learning technology can predict users' search patterns. Meanwhile, Reddit doesn't have as advanced a machine learning engine, he continued.

"The results are going to be less relevant and potentially less accurate if the source material is just threads, and threads can be easily manipulated," Lai said. "We will definitely see people shifting away from searching for the word Reddit on Google and instead going directly to Reddit answers."

OpenAI Sora

Google is not only being threatened in the search market but also in the video-generating space.

OpenAI first introduced Sora in February as a model that can create realistic videos from text.

This week, it introduced a new, faster version called Sora Turbo.

Users can generate up to 20 seconds of video and can prompt Sora with text, images and videos.

Sora's videos are relatively shorter than Google Veo's clips, which can go up to a minute long.

Sora can create videos from files uploaded to its interface.

There are also usage safeguards that keep Sora from generating videos from stolen property or child sexual abuse materials.

Like Veo, Sora might be helpful for advertisers, said Gartner analyst Juliette Dixon.

"Early ideation and storyboarding are the most practical use of video creation tools like Sora," Dixon said.

She added that it will help teams develop concepts and gain buy-in for the investment needed for a project.

But Sora doesn’t appear quite ready for the enterprise yet, Dixon said. OpenAI’s models are proprietary, meaning outside observers can’t see their source code or datasets used to train them.

"It will take time for the outputs to become commercially ready and for enterprises to access the risk of creating content from a platform that doesn't provide visibility into its training data," she said.

ChatGPT Plus users can access Sora at no extra cost. A Pro plan includes 10 times more usage, higher resolution and longer clips.

Esther Ajao is a TechTarget Editorial news writer and podcast host covering artificial intelligence software and systems.