“You can basically skip Google and just ask Reddit now. The AI will pull it in for you.”
This issue of Redeployed is brought to you by Tecla: AI is quoting the internet’s rough drafts without the footnotes. But real engineering work still depends on people who understand the full thread; not just the summary. Tecla helps you hire nearshore engineers who bring context, judgment, and production experience that no LLM can synthesize. Because when the forums go quiet, the right hire still knows what to do.
AI is answering your questions with someone else’s homework.
A new Semrush study shows that tools like Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and SearchGPT are increasingly sourcing their best answers from Reddit. Not just referencing it. Leaning on it. Remixing it. Synthesizing r/aws, r/javascript, and r/devops threads into confident-sounding summaries that strip away the mess and surface the takeaways.
In other words, the bots are lurking. So your users don’t have to.
The Disappearing Context Layer
Reddit became valuable because it was messy. The real value wasn’t the answer, it was the thread. The back-and-forth. The downvotes. The rebuttals. The sarcasm from someone who had actually been paged at 3 a.m. for that exact issue.
Now, AI tools flatten all of that into one clean output. No usernames. No timestamps. No debate. Just the illusion of consensus.
That’s the problem.
Because when an AI quotes a Reddit comment without attribution or pushback, it removes the only mechanism we had for filtering bad advice: the community itself.
There is no downvote button in Perplexity. No “source” link in Google AI Overviews. Just a summary trained on trust it didn’t earn.
A Parasitic Pattern
This goes beyond Reddit. Stack Overflow, GitHub issues, niche forums, they’re all being mined. The messy knowledge creation still happens on the open web. But the AI gets the credit. And the clicks.
Reddit knows this. That’s why they’re cutting deals with OpenAI and Google. But the users? They’re not in the room. Their posts show up in LLM responses with no attribution. No reward. No reason to keep posting.
That’s the real risk.
Because if the forums go quiet, the models go stale. And when the source dies, the summaries get worse. Not more efficient. Just emptier.
What Gets Lost
AI search wins because it saves time. But time-saving systems still need source material. And the people writing it are starting to notice that no one’s clicking through anymore.
If Reddit was the rough draft of the internet’s knowledge base, AI is publishing the final copy, without the footnotes.
When the Threads Go Silent, You Still Need Answers
Reddit might be training the bots, but real engineering teams still need real judgment. As AI tools remix advice with no context, some orgs are hiring developers who know the difference between a shortcut and a rabbit hole.
Tecla helps U.S. tech teams hire senior, English-fluent engineers from Latin America who bring the context with them. No thread required.
The answers might get faster. But they won’t get better.
More to come…
Recommended Reads
✔️ Reddit Leads AI Search Citations but Traffic Isn’t Following — TechTimes
✔️ Google AI Overviews Canary Example, Confident but Inaccurate Summaries — The Guardian
✔️Semrush Study on Reddit’s Role in AI Search— Semrush
– Gino Ferrand, Founder @ Tecla