Reddit stock falls as references to its content in ChatGPT responses plummet (finance.yahoo.com)

Reddit’s shares tumbled about 12% after Promptwatch data showed the platform’s presence in ChatGPT responses plunged in mid‑September — cited in just 2% of answers on Tuesday versus 9.7% the prior month and a September peak above 14%. Despite the drop, Reddit remained the most-referenced social site overall (4.3% of ChatGPT answers in September), far ahead of LinkedIn (0.4%). The outage in citations comes after big licensing deals with OpenAI and Google and follows Bloomberg reporting that Reddit was negotiating renewed, dynamic‑pricing arrangements that would pay more as its content is used more by AI models. The shift matters because citation frequency is a direct lever in those licensing talks and a proxy for how valuable Reddit content is to large language models — potentially influencing revenue terms and investor expectations. Analysts caution the snapshot may not indicate a sustained trend, but it could shape renegotiations given perceived bargaining power imbalances between Reddit and deep‑pocketed partners. Beyond licensing, Reddit’s business remains ad‑driven (ads were 93% of Q2 revenue and grew ~84% to $465M), so changes in AI usage or search traffic could affect monetization. Reddit has also rolled out its own AI search and ad tools, underscoring how central AI integrations and data economics are to its strategy and valuation.