Reddit is turning your posts into AI-powered videos
What's the story
Reddit is testing a new feature that converts text posts into audio and video content. The experiment involves transforming some posts into videos with AI voices reading out the main post and some comments. As the AI voice reads, the text is highlighted in the video. A note at the bottom of each video indicates that it's a "Real conversation voiced by AI."
Feature demonstration
AI voice reading responses
The new AI feature was recently demonstrated on a post from eight years ago in the r/boardgames subreddit.
The original text thread, which had 101 responses recommending good road trip games for adults, was replaced with a three-minute video of AI voices reading out the responses.
Users can still view the original post by toggling between "Read" and "Play" options at the top of the page.
CEO's insight
Listening to posts in the background
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman recently hinted at this new experiment during an earnings call. He said the company was working on a way for users to listen to posts in the background.
Huffman also noted an "emerging content type" where people read Reddit content aloud, creating entire channels of videos with AI voices reading these posts.
Mobile launch
Video and audio posts
The new AI feature is live on the web and will be available on iOS and Android starting Tuesday, a Reddit spokesperson told The Verge.
However, not all posts are being converted into videos yet. As part of this early experiment, Reddit is manually selecting which posts get transformed into videos.
This approach is intended to assess user response to these formats and their authenticity within the Reddit community.