The updates, announced Tuesday at CES, aim to show contextually relevant mentions of brands, topics and categories in real time so marketers know where to focus both paid and organic content. Pro Trends is powered by 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, it helps a marketer recognize when a user or subreddit is talking about “Apple” the fruit and Apple the company.)

Advertisers both large and small — like the NBA and Wayfair — have beta tested Reddit Pro Trends for real-time and longitudinal analytics. Jim Squires, EVP of business marketing and growth at Reddit, said the company sees attracting SMB advertisers as a “big opportunity” and “big focus” for the platform in 2025. He mentioned a small brand called Yes Milady, which Reddit used to find vegan communities that might be interested in their vegan spices. Other examples of early testers include the NBA and Wayfair.

“What’s really special and unique here are the conversations that are happening across communities on Reddit,” Squires said.

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

The ability to analyze content has a big impact on understanding user interests and other areas such as brand safety and ad targeting. Since 2022, Reddit has acquired three AI startups—Memorable AI, MeaningCloud, and Spiketrap—that have helped develop new internal tools for audience insights, text analytics, and advertising.

“Reddit Pro gives advertisers insight into the conversations they should be a part of,” said Rob Gaige, Head of Global Insights at Reddit. He also noted that it would allow advertisers to gain a foothold with new users, new groups and potential customers, or further expand existing brand equity.

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

One way advertisers can use Reddit Pro Trends is to identify audiences who will buy a takeover ad, said Jack Johnston, senior social innovation director at Tinuiti, who noted the platform’s “raw” and “wordy” nature. Advertisers could also use it to analyze conversations to see if brand mentions are stale, spark new conversations, or perhaps generate new interest in an improved product that customers previously didn’t like.

“It’s very descriptive and intended to be a forum for discussion,” Johnston said. “…The difference is that these other platforms are very powerful and real-time. Reddit doesn’t have that much of a real-time aspect.”

Although Reddit’s user base is 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’ at the end of every Google query is almost second nature to many of us,” Hamilton noted. “The Pro Trends tool will provide invaluable insight into what real users are saying. However, given the smaller scale and ephemeral nature of the trending topics, I wonder whether the results will be less insightful than hoped. “Either way, I’m excited to see what it looks like.”

The news builds on Reddit’s other recent updates based on different types of AI. Last month, a new conversation search tool launched to make it easier for users to find answers on Reddit without having to rely on Google. (AI search could also potentially pave the way for new ad formats within search.) Last year, the company also announced new data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI, which use Reddit content to train their own large-scale language models.

The updates signal that Reddit wants to be taken seriously when it comes to attracting advertising dollars, said emarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman. The new AMA Ads are among the first Reddit ad formats to appear truly native. Pro Trends could help marketers “understand the underbelly of internet culture.”

The updates aren’t just about data, Goldman said: They could also help advertisers penetrate communities without feeling “like corporate overlords.” To date, this has often been one of the biggest challenges, as passionate users are also often the first to detect and ward off the smell of “corporate dishonesty.” However, it might pay to treat Reddit like a “research forum rather than a minefield.”

“The evolution of advertising on Reddit will not be complete until it closes the gap between brand expectations and user authenticity,” Goldman said. “If it can manage this balancing act, Reddit could become the digital marketer’s unlikely hero – and not just another platform trying to profit from engagement metrics.”