BuzzFeed Goes Big on Artificial Intelligence

The media company BuzzFeed says it plans to aggressively ramp up content generated by artificial intelligence instead of humans, and investors sound thrilled with this brave new world. The company's stock soared nearly 200% on Thursday to a seven-month high after the news broke, reports Forbes. For context, however, the stock is still down about 75% since the company went public in late 2021. In a staff memo seen by the Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed chief Jonah Peretti said the outlet would have OpenAI—the company behind the popular ChatGPT—start creating quizzes and personalized content for readers. The Journal lays out an example:

• A "quiz to create a personal romantic comedy movie pitch might ask questions like, 'Pick a trope for your rom-com,' and 'Tell us an endearing flaw you have.' The quiz would produce a unique, shareable write-up based on the individual's responses."

A BuzzFeed spokesperson says the outlet will continue to have actual humans write its news stories. Still, Peretti stressed in his email that AI content will become a "core part of our business." CNN notes that the tech site CNET just paused an experiment in which ChatGPT wrote stories for the outlet after several factual errors came to light. Read the CNET explainer here. (More BuzzFeed stories.)