Key takeaways

People now find things across platforms, search engines and AI assistants. The same post can turn up in all three.
The Reuters Institute's 2026 report found social and video networks are the most-used route to online news at 54%. AI chatbot use for news rose from 7% to 10% weekly.
OpenAI and Reddit announced a Data API partnership on 16 May 2024, giving ChatGPT access to Reddit content. Google had a reported Reddit deal earlier that year.
Google says there's nothing special to do for AI Overviews and AI Mode beyond ordinary SEO. So the work is being clear. Tricks won't help.
No independent study I found shows which social content AI assistants cite. Treat vendor studies as ideas, and check each assistant yourself.

On 16 May 2024, OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit. It let ChatGPT surface Reddit discussions through Reddit’s data API, and made OpenAI an advertiser on the site. Engadget reported that Reddit had signed a similar deal with Google earlier that year, reportedly worth $60 million.

For years, marketing kept social and search in separate boxes. Social was attention, search was intent, with different teams, dashboards and budgets. Now one customer question can land in a TikTok feed, a Google result, a Reddit thread and a chatbot answer. One piece of content can turn up in all four.

What does the evidence show?

The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 surveyed 97,520 people in 48 markets. It found social and video networks are now the most-used route to news online: 54%, against 51% for news organisations’ own sites and apps. That’s news, not shopping, so read it as a signal about habits.

Weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose from 7% to 10%, and to 16% among under-35s. 42% of those users say they always or often click through from the answer. That sits between social at 36% and search at 44%, though the report warns the groups differ.

Trust is low. It’s 22% for news found on social and 20% through chatbots, against 37% overall.

Search engines are reading social too. Trade coverage reported that from July 2025, Instagram let public posts from professional adult accounts appear in Google and Bing, with an opt-out. I couldn’t open Meta’s own announcement, or OpenAI’s page beyond its summary. So treat those details as reported.

What the evidence doesn’t show

I haven’t found an independent study of which social content AI assistants cite, or how often. The studies that exist come from companies selling AI-visibility tracking.

Google’s line on AI Overviews and AI Mode is that no special optimisation is needed. You just need an indexed page that’s eligible to show with a snippet. But that’s about web pages. A post on someone else’s platform is outside your control. I cover the web side in AI workflows for SEO and AEO teams.

What I’d change

Keep one map of the questions customers ask about your category. Social and search both own it, so you aren’t publishing two versions of the truth.
Write each post to answer something, in the customers’ words. Name the product, category and audience plainly. Clever wording makes machines guess.
Treat on-screen text, captions and alt text as content. They’re often the only text a system gets from a video or image.
Keep an owned copy of anything important (pricing, how-tos, policies) on your own site, where you control the indexing.
Check what assistants say about you. Ask your buyers’ questions in the assistants they use, every week for a month. Note what comes back and from where.
Decide your indexing settings yourself. Don’t just accept the default.

Don’t overcorrect. Rewriting every caption as a string of keywords loses the voice that made people follow you. People still have to want to read it.

Remember that platforms decide which AI companies can use their content, and on what terms. Those deals can change. A discovery plan that depends on one platform’s goodwill is fragile.

The teams that feed discovery should work from one plan. A shared map of questions. One view of results across search, social and AI answers. And an editor who owns the quality of the answers everywhere.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Do AI assistants use social media posts as sources?

Some do, by agreement or by crawling public pages. OpenAI said in May 2024 it would use Reddit's Data API so ChatGPT could surface Reddit discussions. Google reportedly signed a Reddit data deal earlier that year. Which posts get used in a given answer isn't public, so test the questions your customers ask.

Are Instagram posts indexed by Google?

Trade coverage reported that from July 2025, Meta let public posts from professional accounts run by adults appear in Google and Bing results, with an opt-out in privacy settings. I couldn't open Meta's own announcement, so check your account settings and Meta's current help pages.

What should a social team change for AI search?

Write each post so it answers one clear question in the words customers use. Add accurate on-screen text and captions. Keep names and product terms consistent. Publish important answers on your own site too. Google says no special optimisation is needed for its AI features, so don't chase tricks.

Three-minute lesson on this Search when people ask AI Marketing course, medium. Free, no sign-up.

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