It’s an understatement to say that Reddit had an excellent second quarter. On Thursday, July 31, the social media company reported a boost in revenue from $281 million to $500 million—a 78% increase year-over-year (YOY).  It’s the company’s fastest quarterly growth in three years and blew past the $425 million predicted by Wall Street, according to consensus estimates cited by Bloomberg. It’s also the most significant jump since Reddit went public in March 2024, and investors are responding in spades. Reddit’s stock price (NYSE: RDDT) has jumped over 15% during after-hours and into premarket trading on Friday.  The social media company can thank advertising, in large part. Second-quarter ad revenue increased by 84% YOY, hitting $465 million, Reddit reported. Notably, its daily active users also increased 21% YOY, to 110 million.  Feeding the beast with human-powered knowledge Reddit is walking an interesting line between the benefits of AI and the desire among users for real human connections. It has rolled out features like Reddit Answers, an AI tool that summarizes conversations and posts. But Reddit also focuses on the importance of human-centric discussion.  “For people, conversation and connection are becoming more valuable and rare,” Reddit cofounder and CEO Steve Huffman stated in a quarter-two earnings call. “In a world increasingly dominated by algorithms and automation, the need for human voices has never been greater.”  Huffman cites a recent study that reportedly found 80% of users “believe some questions can only be answered by humans as opposed to AI-generated summaries.” But he follows it up by adding that “for LLM and AI search engines, these conversations and the knowledge they create are essential for training.”  So is Reddit’s idea to focus on human conversation until it gives AI enough info to replace it?  According to Huffman, not necessarily. “In an automated world that depends on human knowledge, we view Reddit as one of the most important and differentiated data sources,” he stated. “We believe this validates what we’ve always thought, human conversation is not being replaced by AI, instead, it’s becoming more important.” He added: “AI doesn’t invent knowledge, it learns from us, from real people, sharing real perspectives. You can’t have artificial intelligence without actual intelligence.”