Reddit weighs pulling Google's AI access to its content as its shares drop 9%

The arrangement is nearing expiry just as Google's AI Overviews drain the search traffic publishers rely on.

Reddit is reconsidering whether to renew a data-licensing arrangement with Google worth about $60 million a year — the 2024 deal that lets Google use Reddit's content to train its artificial-intelligence systems. The company's shares fell 9% on Wednesday after a report that its executives had internally discussed ending Google's access to that content for AI training.

The reassessment is not a decision: with the contract approaching its end, Reddit's leadership is weighing whether the setup still pays off now that Google's AI-generated search answers pull visitors away from outside websites. Those AI Overviews have spread alongside a sharp decline in referral traffic to publishers, drawing significant backlash from outlets that depend on search-driven revenue.

The drop is measurable. Over the twelve months ending June 2026, unpaid Google search visits from US users fell nearly half for USA Today, 23% for Politico, about 25% for CNN, and more than 85% for Business Insider.

Publishers have little room to escape the training use. They cannot keep their material out of generative-AI systems without blocking Googlebot entirely, which would also strip their pages from ordinary search listings. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority moved against that bind in early June 2026, ordering Google to let publishers opt out of AI summaries without losing their placement in traditional search — a remedy Google has nine months to put in place.

Reddit is not alone in the calculation. USA Today, Politico, the Economist, People Inc. and Reuters are each deliberating over whether, and in what form, to continue their arrangements with Google.

Google says its AI search features send a large volume of traffic across the internet and help publishers and creators grow their audiences. On Reddit's side, chief executive Steve Huffman told a recent earnings call that the company's partnerships with Google and OpenAI are important and mutually meaningful, and that Reddit continues to value them.

The stakes are concrete: Reddit's data-licensing business, which includes the Google and OpenAI deals, brought in $39 million in the first quarter. With the Google contract nearing expiry and talks still under way, the next marker comes on July 30, when Reddit releases its second-quarter results.