Tech
Reddit takes on the bots with new ‘human verification’ requirements for fishy behavior
Would-be Reddit competitor Digg just shut down because it couldn’t get a handle on the bots overrunning its site. On Wednesday, Reddit said it’s taking on the challenge itself.
The company will begin labeling automated accounts that are providing a service to users, similar to how the “good bots” are labeled on X, and it will now require accounts that are suspected of being bots to verify if they’re human.
Reddit stresses this is not going to be a sitewide verification requirement, and will only occur if something suggests that the account isn’t human, including its activity on the site or other technical markers. If the account can’t pass the test, it may be restricted, Reddit said.
To identify potential bots, Reddit is using specialized tooling that looks at account-level signals and other factors — like how quickly the account is attempting to write or post content. Using AI to write posts or comments, however, is not against its policies (though community moderators may set their own rules).
To verify an account is human, Reddit will leverage third-party tools like passkeys from Apple, Google, YubiKey, and other third-party biometric services, like Face ID or even Sam Altman’s World ID — or, in some countries, the use of government IDs. Reddit notes this last category may be required in some countries like the U.K. and Australia and some U.S. states, because of local regulations on age verification, but it’s not the company’s preferred method.
“If we need to verify an account is human, we’ll do it in a privacy-first way,” Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman wrote in the announcement Wednesday. “Our aim is to confirm there is a person behind the account, not who that person is. The goal is to increase transparency of what is what on Reddit while preserving the anonymity that makes Reddit unique. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other.”
The changes are meant to address the growing problem of bots engaging on social platforms and the web more broadly, where they’re often used to influence politics, spread misinformation, inflate popularity, secretly market products, generate fake ad clicks, and more. According to Cloudflare, the traffic from bots will exceed human traffic by 2027, when you include bots like web crawlers and AI agents in the mix.
Reddit, in particular, has become a popular destination for bots that attempt to manipulate narratives, astroturf to shill for companies or their products, repost links, post spam, drive traffic, conduct research, and more. Plus, because Reddit’s content is used for AI training thanks to lucrative deals with AI model providers, there’s suspicion that bots are even posting questions on the site to generate more training data, particularly in areas where AI is lacking information.
Reddit’s other co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, has also addressed a related problem known as the “dead internet theory,” a conjecture that bots outnumber humans online and that the vast majority of content, interactions, and web activity on the internet is automated or AI-generated, rather than from people. In the age of AI agents, the theory is becoming a reality.
The company announced last year that it would begin to require human verification in response to the growing number of bots and the need to meet “evolving regulatory requirements.” But the company today notes that the current solutions, which Huffman recently discussed on the TBPN podcast, aren’t the best.
“The best long-term solutions will be decentralized, individualized, private, and ideally not require an ID at all,” Huffman wrote in today’s announcement.
Alongside these changes, Reddit said it would continue to remove bots and spam, where it averages 100,000 account removals per day, and rely on reports of suspected bots, with improved tooling still to come. Developers running so-called good bots can learn more about labeling them with the new “APP” label in the r/redditdev community.
Tech
Glean’s top line crosses $300M as AI budget cutting becomes its major selling point
Glean, a company often described as the Google for enterprise, said it has reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), a three-fold increase from the $100 million milestone it reached just 15 months ago.
While many AI startups are growing at a blistering pace, Glean’s progress is particularly remarkable. After years of essentially being the only player in the category, the seven-year-old startup is accelerating its growth as tech giants enter the enterprise AI search market with rival products.
“The first four or five years of our existence, we had no competition,” Glean CEO Arvind Jain told TechCrunch. “Given how important search is to make AI work in the enterprise, every single company in the world wants to be in this space.”
Tech heavyweights building Glean-like tools include Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, and Atlassian.
Jain maintains there’s value in being a first mover in the space, but that it’s also equally important to offer a better product.
What Glean does better than its competition, according to Jain, comes down to the deep understanding that its AI tools have of customers’ business needs. Glean’s AI achieves this knowledge — a concept captured by the new, popular term “context graph” — by connecting to and learning from enterprises’ internal software systems.
Jain claims that Glean’s context graph also helps enterprises cut AI computing costs.
“If you connect your AI to Glean, it gives you all the information that you need to do your work, and that results in AI consuming far fewer tokens compared to if you unleash AI onto your systems directly,” Jain said. That’s because with Glean, AI ends up performing fewer operations, he added.
At a time when many companies are blowing through their AI budgets, those token cost savings have become a major selling point for the company.
“One of the things you know our customers really like about Glean is the fact that we can reduce your AI bill significantly,” he said.
The company, which was last valued at $7.2 billion when it raised a $150 million Series F last June, offers various pricing structures to its customers, which include Databricks, Reddit, Pinterest, and Samsung.
According to Jain, Glean offers both a consumption-based model, where clients pay per use, and a hybrid model that combines a fixed monthly fee for active users with separate usage fees for model consumption.
Glean is definitely not the first company to do this, but it’s worth pointing out that the company’s $300 million milestone cannot be fully described as traditional ARR, because a consumption model by definition doesn’t have a strictly recurring component.
Pure consumption pricing models depend on fluctuating user activity rather than predictable subscription renewals, therefore a portion of Glean’s top line is more accurately described as an annualized revenue run rate.
Glean did not immediately respond to a request for comment; this post will be updated if the company replies.
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Tech
Final 24 hours to save up to $410 on your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ticket
This is it. The countdown is almost over. You now have until tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT to lock in Early Bird savings of up to $410 for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 before prices increase.
If Disrupt has been on your must-attend list, this is your final chance to secure the lowest available rates before the next price jump hits. Once the deadline passes, so do the savings.
Register now and join 10,000+ founders, investors, operators, and innovators at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13–15 for three days packed with networking, startup discovery, and conversations shaping the future of tech. Bring a plus-one at 50%, or bring a group to get an up to 30% discount.
What makes Disrupt worth attending year after year
TechCrunch Disrupt is where startup momentum accelerates. The event brings together the people actively building, funding, and scaling what’s next across AI, fintech, SaaS, climate, cybersecurity, consumer tech, and beyond.
Attendees come to Disrupt for:
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With 300+ exhibiting startups, Startup Battlefield 200, curated networking experiences, and multiple stages of programming, Disrupt is built to help attendees make meaningful connections and real business progress.
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Disrupt is designed for founders raising capital, investors sourcing opportunities, operators scaling companies, and innovators looking for an edge. Whether you’re launching your next startup, growing your network, or tracking the future of technology, Disrupt puts you in the room with the people driving the industry forward.
Hear directly from tech leaders shaping the industry
Every year, Disrupt brings together hundreds of influential voices across startups and venture capital. Past speakers have included leaders from the companies and firms shaping the future of AI, enterprise software, fintech, consumer tech, and more.
This year will deliver the same high-caliber experience, with 200+ sessions across six industry-focused stages, plus roundtables and breakouts covering scaling, AI, fintech, infrastructure, robotics, and emerging technologies. Explore the growing agenda to see the latest sessions and speaker announcements.
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Savings of up to $410 end tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT
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Tech
Today is the last day to apply to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 returns October 13–15 to Moscone West in San Francisco — and applications to speak are open for just a few more hours.
We’re inviting founders, investors, operators, and technology experts to apply for a chance to take the stage at one of the most influential tech events of the year.
More than 10,000 startup and VC leaders will gather at Disrupt 2026 to explore what’s next in AI, scaling, fintech, infrastructure, robotics, and the future of innovation.
Applications close tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now to share your expertise and help shape the conversations defining the tech industry.
Pick your session format
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