Reddit is trying out a new way for people to take in content on Reddit: by turning text posts into audio / video content. As part of an experiment, some posts are being adapted into videos that use AI voices to read the text of the main post and some comments. The video highlights the text as it’s read by the AI voice, and under the video, a note says that it’s a “Real conversation voiced by AI.”
An old post in r/boardgames from eight years ago with 101 responses to a request for good road trip games that adults will like is an example of Reddit’s AI at work. Instead of the usual text thread, it has the main question above a three-minute video full of AI voices reading out the responses. You can still access the post from a slider toggle at the top marked “Read” for text or “Play” for the video. Playing the video is probably easier for someone who isn’t used to internet forums, but it could introduce other problems, like mispronunciations or citing incorrect comments.
The launch follows Reddit recently saying in an earnings shareholder letter that it was “reimagining how users and communities connect, share, and consume content through a modernized video experience on Reddit.” In an earnings call, CEO Steve Huffman also hinted at this new experiment, saying the company was working on a way to let people listen to posts in the background. He noted that there is an “emerging content type” where people read Reddit content — there are whole channels of videos that are just AI voices reading Reddit posts — and Huffman said a listened-to or spoken version of Reddit “can be really engaging as well.”
The experiment is currently live for me on the web, and it’s set to roll out on iOS and Android starting Tuesday, spokesperson Rosa Kim tells The Verge. “This is an early, limited experiment to understand whether people find these formats useful and how we can deliver them in a way that feels authentic to Reddit,” according to Kim. The experiment will start with “select existing posts first” and will be expanded to more existing posts over time.