Google AI Overviews 如何影响 Reddit 内容生态：来自 SFW 与 NSFW 社区的实证研究

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Abstract:Search engines traditionally complement online content platforms by directing users seeking information to external websites. The emergence of generative AI search tools that summarize answers directly on the results page may disrupt this relationship by making visits to source platforms optional. We study this question using Google AI Overviews and Reddit, one of the largest online discussion platforms. Our identification exploits Google's content moderation policy: Safe-for-Work (SFW) Reddit communities are indexed by Google organic search and surfaced in Google AI Overviews, while Not-Safe-for-Work (NSFW) communities, though indexed by organic search, are prohibited from being referenced in AI Overview summaries. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that AI Overviews increase engagement in SFW communities: daily comments rise by 12.0 percent and the number of commenting users by 12.4 percent relative to NSFW communities. The effects are concentrated in experience-based discussions (opinions, advice, and personal experiences) rather than fact-based information. However, the subsequent introduction of Google AI Mode, which allows users to interact conversationally with the AI summary, largely eliminates these gains in experience-based content. These results suggest that the effects of AI search depend critically on interface design and content type.

Subjects:	Information Retrieval (cs.IR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
Cite as:	arXiv:2605.16428 [cs.IR]
	(or arXiv:2605.16428v4 [cs.IR] for this version)
	https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.16428 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Peibo Zhang [view email]
[v1] Thu, 14 May 2026 18:07:42 UTC (1,353 KB)
[v2] Wed, 20 May 2026 04:45:28 UTC (1,372 KB)
[v3] Sat, 20 Jun 2026 04:00:42 UTC (1,401 KB)
[v4] Sun, 11 Oct 2026 21:21:11 UTC (1,402 KB)