Reddit Rolls Out AI Translation Broadly After Early Tests Deemed Success, CEO Says

Reddit, the online social media platform, has confirmed that it will be launching localized versions of its content into multiple languages over the coming weeks.

With 50% of Reddit’s user base located outside of the US, the company had identified localization as a key growth driver to investors earlier in 2024 and launched a machine translation pilot in France to allow French-speaking users to access unlocalized content on the platform.

According to CEO Steve Huffman, “the test was a success”, as he told analysts at the company’s Q2 earnings call that “international daily active users exceeded 45 million, growing 44% year-over-year and 11% from Q1.”

“France was one of our fastest growing countries surpassing growth in the US. We will now begin to expand machine translation to German, Spanish and Portuguese, aiming to make Reddit accessible to everyone regardless of their native language,” he added.

Following the company’s Q2 results, Reddit has now announced the details of the international rollout, which will see machine-translated content available within Reddit in more than 35 countries.

“Machine translation is one of the best opportunities we’ve ever seen to rapidly grow the content base outside of English.” — Steve Huffman, CEO, Reddit

According to the company’s announcement, “Redditors in Brazil and Spain can now click the translate icon […] to translate their entire Reddit feed—including posts and comments—into new language options. People can also participate in conversations and contribute to communities in their own language.”

Reddit confirmed that users in Germany, Italy, the Philippines, and “throughout Latin America” will be able to interact with machine-generated translations in the coming weeks, across all devices and applications.

Users will be able to follow and contribute to communities and discussions in another language, and post and comment in their preferred language. Posts in other languages will then be automatically translated into the community’s predefined language.

Reddit will allow users to see the original language post and will mark posts that have been translated using AI. The company also plans to index translated content to search engines to boost user growth globally.

For Reddit’s Huffman, “Machine translation is one of the best opportunities we’ve ever seen to rapidly grow the content base outside of English. […] The quality [of content] will work in every market, but you have to have the content base, and the community base to recommend people too. And so that’s where machine translation is really affected. […] [It is] a multiplier effect on top of [quality content].”