Reddit Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong said that the social media site, which will begin trading publicly Thursday, will continue to see its data licensing business grow as artificial intelligence gains traction.

"Reddit’s corpus of information is very important to the training of large language models,” she said, adding that the site’s 19 years’ worth of organised and moderated content will become more valuable as AI-generated content becomes prevalent. "Original thoughts and human ideas increase in value,” she said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

Reddit signed a licensing deal with Alphabet Inc.’s Google to allow the tech giant to use its content for training AI models earlier this year.

Wong said the company’s initial public offering, which has been in the works for more than two years, has made Reddit a better company overall.

"That process has made us more disciplined, more operationally rigorous and actually allowed us to get to know investors better,” Wong said.

Asked about how the company’s at times volatile user base could affect its share price, Wong said, "Who knows? It’s Reddit, who knows what’s going to happen?” She added, "In the end I think having our users be our shareholders is a good thing.”

 - Bloomberg