Reddit in AI answers, one month on: 102nd to 11th on ChatGPT, first on Perplexity

Between 1 and 29 August 2026, we archived 3,849 answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Mistral and Grok: every answer produced over that window by the trackers running on Epovest, asked verbatim through the engines' official interfaces. Set against our July wave, one month apart, reddit.com moved from 102nd to 11th on ChatGPT, took the top spot on Perplexity, held first place on Gemini, and stayed at zero on Claude. Two of the four engines measured in July moved, and not in the same way.

What moved in one month

Two of those lines carry the wave. ChatGPT went from 3 citations out of 1,945 to 39 out of 3,249, and from 102nd place to 11th. Perplexity took first place on its own ranking while the portion of its citations going to that one domain fell by a fifth. Gemini did not move, and Claude stayed off the map.

What was measured

The corpus is the complete answer history of the trackers running on Epovest over the window: questions asked word for word on their own cadence, answers archived in full with the sources each engine cited. The question sets span unrelated markets, from travel editorial to marketing tooling. We count citations at the registrable-domain level, the same unit as our Atlas, and every host in this corpus resolved to one, so every number below keeps its full denominator.

Two things changed in the corpus itself between the two waves, and both are read into every comparison above:

• the window carries 3,849 answers, against 1,427 in July;
• it covers six engines, against four in July.

Ranks and shares are what compare from one wave to the next. Raw counts belong to their own window and to the denominator printed next to them.

In the product, the same photo reads through AI Authority, the 0 to 100 scale of our Atlas, on 29 August: 100 on Gemini, 100 on Perplexity, 100 on Mistral, 100 on Grok, 61 on ChatGPT, and an empty cell on Claude. Four of those hundreds say one thing: reddit.com is the most cited domain of each of those four engines, so its score sits at the top of each of those four ladders by construction, and would stay there through a decline until another domain passed it. The line that carries information this month is ChatGPT's, 6 in July and 61 in August, and the counts behind it say it plainly: 3 citations, then 39.

ChatGPT, from 102nd to 11th

In July, reddit.com sat 102nd on ChatGPT with 3 citations out of 1,945, in a ranking led by editorial and institutional domains. In August it sits 11th with 39 out of 3,249, behind lonelyplanet.com (135), nationalgeographic.com (89) and google.com (81). Its share of ChatGPT's citations went from 0.15% to 1.20%, and its AI Authority on that engine from 6 to 61.

The public record around that engine carries two dated entries. On 16 May 2024, OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit giving it access to Reddit's data API, to "better understand and showcase Reddit content". On 17 September 2025, Bloomberg reported that Reddit was seeking its next content agreements with both Google and OpenAI, the 2024 contracts coming up for renewal in 2026. The May 2024 agreement was in force across both of our windows: it dates the access, and the move sits inside it.

Perplexity takes the top spot while its share falls

reddit.com is the most cited domain in Perplexity's answers this month, 580 citations, ahead of youtube.com (420) and linkedin.com (158). In July it was second, behind youtube.com. Over the same month its share of Perplexity's citations fell from 5.70% to 4.42%, on a denominator that went from 4,646 citations to 13,135 and a map that went from 1,144 distinct domains to 2,646.

Rank and share answer two different questions, and this engine is where the difference shows: one asks who leads, the other asks how much of the whole a single domain carries. Both are true here, at the same time, on the same corpus.

The court record on that engine moved this month. On 22 October 2025, Reddit filed suit against Perplexity AI and three data providers, SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWM Proxy, alleging that its content was obtained through scraped Google search results. On 31 July 2026, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely denied the motions to dismiss in a 63-page opinion: Reddit's DMCA section 1201(a) anti-circumvention claims proceed against both Perplexity and SerpApi, while a section 1201(b) trafficking claim against SerpApi and the unfair competition and unjust enrichment counts against both defendants were dismissed. The allegations remain allegations, and the case moves past the pleading stage. Perplexity is the engine where we measure reddit.com's highest citation count, in July and again in August.

Gemini does not move

reddit.com is the most cited domain in Gemini's answers for the second wave running: 89 citations out of 5,671, 1.57% of the total, against 1.62% in July. Gemini is also the engine that spreads the widest, 2,346 distinct domains for those citations and a top ten carrying 8.8%, the same figure as last month.

Since February 2024, Google holds a content licensing agreement with Reddit, reported at approximately $60 million per year. On 22 July 2026, CNBC reported that Reddit may not renew it as its term nears its end. Retrieved on 31 August 2026, reddit.com/robots.txt reads, for all user agents: "Disallow: /", with a comment pointing to Reddit's Public Content Policy.

Claude, still zero, reading included

reddit.com appears nowhere on Claude's map this month: zero citations out of 2,072, and zero pages read out of 2,412. Claude is the one engine that exposes the pages it read without citing them, which is what makes that second zero a measurement rather than an assumption. It is also the engine that searches the least of the six: 282 of its 669 answers, 42%, were composed without searching the web at all.

On 4 June 2025, Reddit filed suit against Anthropic, the publisher of Claude, over data scraping. On 30 March 2026, Judge Trina L. Thompson, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, remanded the case to California state court, holding that Reddit's contract and tort claims are not preempted by the Copyright Act. The claims are pending in San Francisco Superior Court.

Two engines enter the measurement

July's wave covered four engines, August's covers six, and the two newcomers land in different places:

• Grok: 51 citations out of 2,982, 2nd of 1,028 domains cited, 1.71% of its citations, behind semrush.com;
• Mistral: 21 citations out of 2,142, 8th of 586 domains cited, 0.98% of its citations.

Both are first measurements, with no July figure behind them. They carry their own line from the next wave on.

What this makes worth doing

Three moves follow from the measurement.

Read your visibility engine by engine, and read it again a month later. One domain, one window, six engines: first on three of them, second on one, 11th on another, and nowhere on the sixth. One of those positions moved 91 places in a month, and the six engines share almost none of their sources to begin with. A merged number would have shown none of it.

Separate rank from share when you read a move. Perplexity took first place this month while carrying a smaller portion of its own citations, because its map grew faster than one domain's presence on it. Two names can trade places on an engine without either of them having changed anything, which is why how often an engine cites anyone at all belongs next to any position you read.

Match your surfaces to the regimes your market meets. Community platforms carry the top of Gemini's, Perplexity's and Grok's rankings, editorial and institutional pages carry ChatGPT's, and what an engine reads without citing it differs again from what it cites. Four Claude answers in ten are composed from the model's own knowledge, where the work is being part of it.

This is the second wave of a series, frozen on a declared window with its parameters recorded. The agreement behind Gemini's side of the map is publicly reported to be approaching its term, and each of the two court records above has moved once in the last five months. When the next one moves, we will publish the following wave against this baseline: same unit, same parameters, same denominators.

Sources

• Reuters, February 2024: Reddit signs a content licensing agreement with Google, reported at approximately $60 million per year.
• Reddit S-1 filing, February 2024: $203 million of content licensing contracts disclosed.
• Axios, 16 May 2024: OpenAI and Reddit announce their partnership.
• TechCrunch, 25 June 2024: Reddit announces crawler restrictions under its Public Content Policy.
• Engadget, July 2024: Search engines that do not pay can no longer index Reddit.
• Bloomberg, 17 September 2025: Reddit seeks to strike its next AI content pacts with Google and OpenAI.
• Built In, October 2025: Reddit sues Perplexity, SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWM Proxy.
• MLex, 30 March 2026: Reddit v. Anthropic remanded to California state court.
• CNBC, 22 July 2026: Reddit may not renew the Google agreement.
• MLex, 31 July 2026: a US judge allows Reddit's anti-circumvention claims against Perplexity AI and SerpApi.
• reddit.com/robots.txt, retrieved 31 August 2026.