Reddit’s data licensing revenue grows 24% to $43M as OpenAI and Google lead the buyer list

Reddit just reported Q2 2026 earnings that should have been a victory lap. Total revenue hit $805 million, advertising surged 64% year-over-year to $762 million, and the company’s data licensing business grew 24% to $43 million. OpenAI and Google remained the two biggest customers for that data. The stock dropped more than 20%. The reason is simple math. Data licensing accounts for roughly 5% of total revenue. That’s not the trajectory the market was pricing in. A $43 million problem in an $805 million quarter Reddit’s advertising engine is firing on all cylinders. A 64% jump in ad revenue to $762 million is the kind of growth most public companies would frame on the wall. But Reddit’s stock has been trading less on what it is, an advertising platform, and more on what it could become, a critical data supplier for the AI industry. Reddit hosts one of the internet’s largest archives of human-generated conversation. OpenAI and Google both signed licensing agreements in early 2024, and at IPO, Reddit disclosed an aggregate $203 million in data licensing contract value. What really spooked investors was the absence of major new deals. Reddit’s existing partnerships with OpenAI and Goog...