The updates, announced at CES on Tuesday, aim to provide contextually relevant mentions of brand, topic and category in real-time so marketers know where to focus both paid and organic content. Pro Trends uses several machine learning tools, such as named entity recognition, which uses natural language processing to help advertisers track more than 100,000 “smart” keywords. (For example, this will help a marketer detect when a user or subreddit is talking about “apple” as a fruit versus Apple.)

Advertisers big and small were beta testers of Reddit Pro Trends. Jim Squires, Reddit’s EVP of business marketing and growth, said a small brand called Yes Milady used Pro Trends to find vegan communities on Reddit that might be interested in the vegan spice brand’s product. Other examples of early testers include the NBA and Wayfair.

“What’s really special and unique here is the conversations that happen in all the communities across Reddit,” said Squires.

Of course, Reddit isn’t the first platform to offer ways to help marketers track user trends. Google Trends has been a marketing mainstay for years, while others like Pinterest and TikTok also have their own features for their specific platforms and user bases. However, marketers see the appeal of having more ways to analyze Reddit’s text-centric nature, which could be especially useful since Reddit’s language is often unique to the platform.

The ability to analyze content has major implications for understanding user interests and other areas such as brand safety and ad targeting. As of 2022, Reddit’s acquired three AI startups—Memorable AI, MeaningCloud, and Spiketrap—to help build new internal tools for audience insights, text analytics, and advertising.

Reddit Pro gives advertisers insight into the conversations they’re participating in and should be participating in, said Rob Gaige, Reddit’s head of global insights. He also noted that advertisers could use it to gain traction with new users, new groups and potential customers, or build on existing brand equity.

“That’s really the magic of how Reddit Pro works: It shows you where you are,” Gaige said. “You can double it, but it shows you where to be and gives you a strategy to enter that conversation.

One way advertisers can take advantage of Reddit Pro Trends is to identify an ad-buying audience for takeovers, said Jack Johnston, Tinuiti’s chief social innovation officer, who noted the “raw” and “wordy” nature of the platform. Advertisers can also use it to analyze conversations to see if brand mentions are out of date, spark new conversations, or perhaps create new interest in an improved product that previously didn’t appeal to customers.

“It’s very descriptive and meant to be a conversational forum,” Johnston said. “… What makes it different is that these other platforms are very immersive and work in real time. There’s not as much of a real-time aspect to Reddit.”

Despite Reddit’s user base being smaller than other platforms, Reddit is “one of the last text-based sources of truth on the Internet,” said Erik Hamilton, vice president of search and social at digital agency Good Apple.

“Adding ‘reddit’ to the end of any Google query is almost second nature to many of us,” Hamilton noted. “The Pro Trends tool will be an invaluable look at what real users are saying, although given the smaller scale and ephemeral nature of trending topics, I wonder if the results will be less revealing than we’d hoped. Either way, I’m excited to see what it looks like.”

The news builds on other recent Reddit updates powered by different types of AI. Last month, it introduced a new conversational search tool to help users more easily find answers on Reddit without relying on Google. (Search AI could also potentially pave the way for new advertising formats in search.) Last year, the company also announced new data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI, which use Reddit content to train its own large language models.

The updates signal that Reddit wants to be taken seriously when it comes to winning over ad dollars, emarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman said. The new AMA ads are among Reddit’s first ad formats that feel truly native. Pro Trends could help marketers “understand the underbelly of Internet culture.”

The updates aren’t just about data, Goldman said: They can also help advertisers tap into communities without “feeling like corporate overlords.” This has often been one of the biggest challenges so far, as passionate users are also often the first to smell and repel any whiff of “corporate dishonesty”. However, treating Reddit as a “research wheel instead of a minefield” could pay off.

“The evolution of advertising on Reddit will not be complete until it bridges the gap between brand expectations and user authenticity,” said Goldman. “If it can walk the tightrope, Reddit can become an unlikely hero in digital marketing — and not just another platform trying to cash in on engagement metrics.”