Investors give Reddit a big upvote after its latest earnings report

Reddit reported its second-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

7/31/25 4:22PM

Reddit shares surged over 12% in after-hours trading after the internet’s Thunderdome reported its second-quarter earnings on Thursday.

The social media company posted earnings of $0.45 per share, below expectations of $0.69 (yes, we see it) per analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue spiked to $500 million, well above Wall Street’s $426 million consensus and up 78% from last year. In May, Reddit forecast second-quarter revenue of between $410 million and $430 million.

The company’s advertising business continued to make up the vast majority of its top line, bringing in $465 million, up 84% from last year. In the second quarter, advertising made up 93% of Reddit’s revenue. Some analysts believe Reddit’s value as a potential dataset for AI could expand in the quarters to come, which could pump the company’s “other revenue” category higher.

Daily active users rose to 110.4 million, better than expected and up 21% from last year’s 91.2 million. Lurkers made up more than half of that total, growing 24%, compared to 17% growth in logged-in visitors. Reddit has previously blamed Google’s algorithm for swings in its unique visit totals.

Looking ahead, Reddit sees sales climbing to a range of between $535 million and $545 million in the third quarter, well above analysts’ expectations of $473 million.

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Google invests $75 million in film studio A24, forms AI partnership

Google is investing roughly $75 million in independent film studio A24 as part of an AI partnership, according the Wall Street Journal. The investment marks Google’s first direct stake in a film studio.

Under the agreement, A24 will work with Google DeepMind to develop and test AI tools for filmmaking and production workflows, the Journal reports.

The deal comes as A24 continues to expand its business beyond indie films into television, music, and live events. Since its 2013 launch, the studio has produced Oscar-winning films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once. Its revenue has more than doubled over the past two years, according to the Journal, and the company was last valued at $3.5 billion in a Thrive Capital-led funding round in 2024.

Google’s investment comes as major technology companies increasingly deepen ties with media companies as generative AI tools become more integrated into creative industries. For Google, the partnership also expands DeepMind’s reach into entertainment and film production.

The firm and TV industry is pushing to develop AI tools that can be integrated into the time-consuming and expensive production process. In a sign of the potential value of such tools, in March, Netflix announced it would acquire Ben Affleck's startup InterPositive, which is building AI film-making tools, for $600 million.

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Getty Images surges following OpenAI partnership

Getty Images is surging in early trading after the company announced a multi-year licensing and product partnership with OpenAI.

Under the agreement, OpenAI will license Getty’s library of images, videos, and metadata for use in training and improving its AI models, while Getty will integrate OpenAI’s generative AI tools into its own products and services.

The deal comes as Getty faces growing pressure from generative AI tools that can create stock image-like images in seconds, threatening parts of its traditional licensing business. Getty posted revenue of $226.6 million in Q1, down 2.5% year over year on a currency-neutral basis.

Getty was one of the earliest major content companies to challenge AI firms in court, suing Stability AI in 2023 for allegedly scraping millions of copyrighted images without permission to train image-generation models.

The OpenAI deal follows Getty’s 2025 licensing agreement with Perplexity, which gave the AI search company access to Getty’s library and required image credits with links to original sources.

Before the announcement, Getty shares had been trading below $1 for months. The stock surged by 124% in early trading, erasing its year-to-date losses as investors are waiting to see if Getty can turn its licensed content library into a more valuable AI asset.