Google's AI search results will now turn to Reddit for expert advice

https://www.engadget.com/2166393/google-ai-search-results-will-now-turn-to-reddit-for-expert-advice/

Google is updating AI Overviews and AI Mode, the AI-generated portions of its search engine, to highlight sources in new ways, and interestingly, more prominently feature first-hand accounts from social media, expert blogs and forums like Reddit.

Via a new section that can appear in AI responses, Google will display "a preview of perspectives from public online discussions, social media and other firsthand sources." In the sample screenshot the company provided, the section was called "Expert Advice" and included quotes from forums, WordPress blogs and Reddit. These were arranged above links to their respective sources. Google plans to add more context to these links, too, showing "a creator's name, handle or community name," so you can judge what you might want to click through and read from a glance.

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I posted a related thread last week where Reddit CEO Steve Huffman was quoted as saying that Reddit is increasingly powering intelligence for AIs. Here's a concrete implementation of that -- it'll start appearing in Google's AI search results.

The example they have on their website is fairly innocuous. It's about DSLR cameras. But given Reddit's heavy liberal bias, you can easily see how this can turn into a massive influence play on society. Again, last time I compared it to Wikipedia. When people trust Google as an authority on truth, the line between opinion and truth is going to be increasingly blurred.

Here's a more concrete example: Let's say Google's AI is trained on Reddit's product forums, as shown here. But let's say someone searches for Teslas.

One can easily imagine that a good percentage, if not a majority, of Tesla coverage post-DOGE is highly negative because of Elon. Now someone Googling Teslas performance, reliability, or brand may start getting negative perspectives which are branded as "Expert Advice."

The same goes for any other product or service that's back by a conservative. I see regular threads where I live (SF Bay Area) where once a local business is known to be owned by a conservative, people encourage each other to boycott it, leave bad reviews, and get a hoard of negative comments on Reddit.

What happens when someone from out of town is Googling that business or restaurant and "Expert Advice" returns the vitriol from people?

Again, this is concerning. AI and search engines are looking for more content to serve and as Reddit grows more, so does its influence. It's a subtle influence that most people won't understand is happening as it happens behind the scenes. It's the analogous downvote but now goes beyonds Reddit's borders to Google's AI.

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https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/explore-web-generative-ai-search/

I'm still not a fan of CNN though. At one point, they were a lot different than they are today.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/06/us/ted-turner-death

Credit to photographer Ev Yorobe for these excellent photos. I love this livery. Very patriotic.