YouTube Overtakes Reddit as Top Source of AI Data

YouTube has replaced Reddit as the leading social platform referenced by large language models when generating responses. This shift requires brands to rethink their digital presence strategies.

Feb 2, 2026 0 3

YouTube Overtakes Reddit as Top Source of AI Data

New data reveals a significant shift in the hierarchy of social platforms used by large language models (LLMs). According to the study, YouTube has surpassed Reddit as the top social source for citations in AI-generated responses.

This transition reflects the overcoming of a major technical barrier. Historically, Reddit, thanks to its text-based format, was the preferred source. However, LLMs have now learned to effectively extract information from video content thanks to the availability of transcripts, descriptions, and accompanying text data on YouTube.

Statistics confirm this trend: over the past six months, YouTube was cited as the source of 16% of AI responses, while Reddit's share was 10%. This growing visibility of the video platform is forcing brands and marketers to rethink their digital presence strategies. The emphasis is shifting to creating video content optimized not only for human audiences but also for machine reading, to integrate into the emerging AI knowledge architecture.