San Francisco, February 11, 2026, 02:55 (PST)
- Reddit brought on Amit Puntambekar as EVP of Consumer Engineering and elevated Jim Squires to chief marketing officer, while Laura Nestler moved up to EVP of Community
- After integrating its AI-powered Reddit Answers, the company reports that over 80 million people now use Reddit search weekly
- Executives are experimenting with new search placements and enhanced AI results as Reddit aims to retain more of the “what to buy/watch/try” research directly on its platform
On Monday, Reddit announced Amit Puntambekar as its new executive vice president of consumer engineering. At the same time, Jim Squires was promoted to chief marketing officer, and Laura Nestler stepped up as executive vice president of community, the company said. 1
Reddit’s leadership changes coincide with a bigger push to boost search within its app, aiming to keep users researching and making decisions without leaving the platform. This focus is crucial for its ad business, since search queries usually show stronger intent than just casual browsing.
During the latest quarterly earnings call, Reddit execs revealed that over 80 million users tap into Reddit search every week. This surge follows the integration of keyword search with Reddit Answers, an AI-driven feature that crafts Q&A-style replies based on Reddit posts. 2
Puntambekar, who co-founded QuickFire Networks—acquired later by Meta—has also held engineering leadership roles at Atlassian and Meta, Reddit said. He’s set to join in late February and will report directly to CEO Steve Huffman.
Puntambekar described Reddit as “the most authentic corner of the internet,” a phrase the company has used to highlight what sets the platform apart from AI-generated content.
Nestler will continue heading the community team, which Reddit says serves 121 million daily unique users across over 100,000 communities. Squires will take charge of business and consumer marketing, covering brand, creative, and customer growth efforts.
Huffman noted that Puntambekar “joins Reddit at the perfect time” as the company accelerates product development and enhances user experience. Meanwhile, chief operating officer Jen Wong said Squires’ promotion “strengthens the remit of our business leadership team.”
Reddit’s push isn’t just about expanding its search bar. Huffman told investors the goal is to turn Reddit into an “end-to-end search destination.” The company reported that weekly search activity climbed from roughly 60 million a year ago to over 80 million in the fourth quarter.
Huffman reported that Reddit Answers queries surged to around 15 million in Q4, up from just about 1 million the previous year. He positioned the product as ideal for open-ended questions—like what to buy, watch, or try—where users seek a variety of opinions rather than a single “right” answer.
He also mentioned that Reddit is experimenting with “dynamic agentic search results,” which are more automated and interactive, capable of integrating various media formats. The company is trying out app designs that highlight search more prominently, including versions where the search bar stays visible at all times, he said.
Wong pointed out that search and Answers present a huge opportunity, despite monetization being in its early stages for parts of the product. She called search behavior “incremental and additive” to current engagement, often linked to moments when users are about to make a decision or purchase.
Huffman connected Reddit’s search efforts to collaborations with Google and OpenAI, noting that Reddit content has become the top-cited source in AI-generated responses, according to Search Engine Land. He added that Reddit aims for those summaries to guide users into communities, where they can dive into threads and pose follow-up questions.
In a Monday column, The Motley Fool claimed that Reddit’s key advantage lies in the “candor of our conversations,” something AI systems find hard to mimic on a large scale. This trait, the column suggested, could boost the platform’s appeal to advertisers. 3
Still, betting on search has its downsides. AI-generated summaries might be inaccurate or come off as overly polished, and pushing too hard on search and commerce could annoy users and moderators who primarily want genuine discussions, not just a sales pipeline.
