Does Google AI Use Reddit as a Source? What New Data Means for Local Businesses

When our Beket AI audit asked Google "how to choose a mortgage broker in Seattle" on October 27, 2026, the AI Overview cited seven sources. Next to Zillow, Experian and a few mortgage company websites sat a link to Reddit. In the same audit sample, 376 links from ChatGPT answers about Seattle and Vancouver businesses included no Reddit pages at all. A new study published the same day suggests that gap is not a fluke.

The study, from the AI search platform Searchable, looked at which AI engines use the most user-generated content. Its short answer to "does Google AI use Reddit as a source?" is yes, much more than the chatbots do, along with YouTube, Facebook and other places where ordinary people post.

Below: what the study found, what our own local audits in Seattle and Vancouver showed, and what it means if you run a local business.

What the study measured

Searchable analyzed 3.2 million pages that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode listed as sources between October 12 and 25, 2026. For each engine it measured the share of sources posted by individual users: a forum thread, a creator's video, a personal post. It checked who posted each page rather than counting every YouTube or LinkedIn link as user content.

Two caveats before the numbers. The questions are the ones Searchable's own customers track, averaged across brands, so this is one company's prompt set, not a random sample of all searches. And Searchable sells AI visibility tracking, so it has a stake in the topic. We link to the data; we are not recommending the product.

Engine	Share of sources posted by individual users (Oct 12 to 25, 2026)
Google AI Overviews	8.6%
Google AI Mode	7.0%
Gemini	1.3%
ChatGPT	1.1%
Perplexity	1.1%

Source: Searchable, published October 27, 2026.

In Searchable's words, about one in twelve AI Overviews sources was user-generated, against about one in ninety for ChatGPT and Perplexity. Gemini is a Google product too, but here it behaved like the chatbots, not like Google Search.

Where the user content comes from

The engines also pull their user content from different sites. Here is the part of Searchable's table that matters most for local businesses:

Share of each engine's user-generated sources	AI Overviews	AI Mode	ChatGPT	Perplexity	Gemini
YouTube	32.9%	37.1%	1.6%	4.9%	4.4%
Reddit	28.7%	31.8%	90.0%	47.1%	81.9%
Facebook	14.1%	10.1%	0.4%	0.6%	0.6%
LinkedIn	7.5%	10.4%	2.3%	31.5%	0.2%
Instagram	6.2%	1.6%	0.0%	0.6%	0.9%

Source: Searchable, October 12 to 25, 2026. Remaining shares went to Medium, Quora and other forums and social sites.

So YouTube and Reddit together supplied 62% of the user-generated sources in AI Overviews and 69% in AI Mode. ChatGPT uses little user content, and 90% of what it does use is Reddit.

One more finding is easy to miss. Between 44% and 50% of the forum and social pages used by AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity were posted by brands, publishers or the platform itself, not by users (24% for ChatGPT). A business's own YouTube channel or LinkedIn company page is the business talking about itself. It is not the same as customers talking about it.

What we saw in local answers

Searchable's questions are the ones its customers track, not local service searches in particular. We wanted to know whether the same split shows up when people ask for a local business. So we went back to seven Beket AI market audits of unbranded local questions, such as "family lawyers in Seattle" or "mortgage brokers for first time home buyers in Seattle":

• Vancouver lawyers, mortgage brokers and realtors (October 23, 2026)
• Vancouver marketing agencies (October 25, 2026)
• Seattle lawyers, realtors and mortgage brokers (October 27, 2026)

Each audit asked 25 questions plus a few of the audit's own discovery prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview. Across the seven, ChatGPT and Perplexity each returned 203 answers. Google showed an AI Overview for only 65 of the same 203 prompts. Those answers cited 2,563 sources on Perplexity, 793 on ChatGPT and 384 on AI Overviews, according to the audits' answer logs.

A limit we have to be upfront about: Beket AI's citation export tags each link with its engine, but returns only the first 100 links per audit. That gives us 700 engine-tagged links out of several thousand, not a random sample, and the AI Overview links in it come from just two audits (Seattle lawyers and Seattle mortgage brokers, 13 answers). So read the next table as a small, real sample, not a measurement of every answer.

Where the links pointed (engine-tagged sample)	Google AI Overview	ChatGPT	Perplexity
Links in sample	68	376	256
Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn or Yelp	10 (14.7%)	0 (0%)	4 (1.6%)
Directories and review sites (Zillow, Clutch, Avvo and similar)	9 (13.2%)	53 (14.1%)	73 (28.5%)
Regulators, government, bar and legal aid sites	4 (5.9%)	71 (18.9%)	77 (30.1%)
Google links (Search and Maps)	7 (10.3%)	5 (1.3%)	0 (0%)
Business websites and everything else	38 (55.9%)	247 (65.7%)	102 (39.8%)

Source: Beket AI market audits, October 23 to 27, 2026. First 100 engine-tagged citations per audit for seven audits. We grouped links by domain only and did not check who posted each page.

What stood out:

• Google AI Overview was the only engine that linked to Reddit, YouTube, Facebook or Yelp. Its 10 links were Reddit (5), Yelp (2), YouTube (1), Facebook (1) and LinkedIn (1). Eight of its 13 answers in the sample had at least one of them, and five cited Reddit.
• ChatGPT linked to none of them in 376 links across 77 answers. Its one forum-type link was BiggerPockets, a real estate investor community.
• Perplexity's four were all LinkedIn company pages, brand content by Searchable's definition, not user posts. It cited no Reddit, YouTube, Facebook or Yelp pages in this sample.
• The Seattle mortgage audit is the cleanest side-by-side, with about 50 links from each engine on the same day. AI Overview's 49 links included Reddit 4 times, Yelp twice, and YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn once each, plus Zillow 4 times. ChatGPT's 51 links included none of those, but 13 pointed to licensing, housing and government sites such as NMLS Consumer Access and Washington's Department of Financial Institutions.

The Reddit links in AI Overviews came from questions like "how to choose a mortgage broker in Seattle," "how do mortgage brokers get paid in Washington," "mortgage pre approval in Seattle WA" and "affordable lawyers in Seattle." Most of these are research questions, where someone wants other people's experience rather than just a list of names.

It is also worth saying what did not show up. In the full citation lists of all seven audits, none of the ten most-cited domains was Reddit, YouTube, Facebook or Yelp. The top spots went to directories (Zillow with 73 links in the Seattle realtors audit, Clutch with 63 for Vancouver agencies, Justia with 48 for Seattle lawyers), regulators (BC Financial Services Authority with 157 for Vancouver mortgage brokers) and business websites (Blue Square Mortgage with 72 for Seattle mortgage brokers). These totals mix all three engines, and Perplexity cited the most links by far, so they lean toward Perplexity's habits. Our Seattle mortgage brokers study has the full per-engine breakdown of who was named.

Two more caveats on our side. Beket AI often records an AI Overview link at the domain level (51 of the 68 were homepage URLs such as reddit.com), so we cannot tell which thread or video Google used. And these are single runs on single days; AI answers change over time.

What this means for a local business

Put the two data sets together and a fairly practical picture comes out.

1. Google's AI answers are where customer talk counts most. If your customers search on Google, what people say about you on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook and Yelp can end up next to an AI Overview. In ChatGPT and Perplexity, in our sample, the same answers leaned on directories, regulators and business websites instead. If you are working on Google's AI features, our guide on how to show up in Google AI Overviews covers the basics first.

2. AI Overviews don't show up for most local searches, but research questions are different. Google showed an AI Overview for 65 of 203 prompts in our seven audits. Most of the prompts where it cited Reddit were "how do I choose" or "how does it work" questions, not plain "best X in Seattle" lists. Those research questions look like the place where real discussion of your trade gets pulled in. AI Mode, which Searchable found also leans on user content (7.0%), behaves differently from AI Overviews in other ways; our AI Mode vs AI Overviews comparison explains how.

3. Earn it; don't fake it. The useful version of this is ordinary: ask happy customers for reviews on the sites your category uses, answer questions in local subreddits and Facebook groups as yourself when you genuinely know the answer, and fix what people complain about. Fake reviews and planted threads break the rules of the platforms they sit on.

4. Your own channel is not the same as word of mouth. Searchable found that brands' own YouTube channels were the most common non-user page on social platforms. A how-to video on your channel can still be cited, but it counts as you talking about yourself. A local creator's honest review is a different kind of source.

5. Don't neglect directories and licensing pages. In our sample they made up 14% to 30% of each engine's links, and ChatGPT and Perplexity leaned on them heavily. Keep your listings on the directories your trade uses accurate, and make sure your license details are easy to verify. The nine local studies roundup shows how differently the engines answered across nine trades.

What to watch

The two data sets were collected on different prompt sets, with different methods, at about the same time in October 2026. Searchable measured who posted each page; we only grouped links by domain, in a small sample. They point the same way, but neither is the final word, and AI engines change which sources they favor. It is worth checking your own category again in a few weeks.

You can check which sites each engine cites when people ask about your kind of business with a free Beket AI audit: 25 prompts across 3 engines at beket.ai. Beket AI Pro is $49/month, re-audits daily and starts at 50 prompts across 3 engines.

About the author: Nur Rysbek is the CEO of Beket AI.