Back in early 2023, BuzzFeed’s top boss Jonah Peretti sent out a company-wide note that shifted the entire business sharply toward artificial intelligence.
This happened just weeks after ChatGPT made its big debut and captured everyone’s attention.
The plan was straightforward: let AI tools create custom answers inside the site’s popular quizzes to make them feel more personal and engaging for users.
At first, investors got excited. The share price shot up quickly from about three dollars to more than fifteen dollars each. Yet that burst of enthusiasm did not last. Most people inside the company and outside stayed doubtful about whether this direction would truly work out. Even so, Peretti pushed ahead with even bigger ideas.
Just a few months later, in May 2023, he declared that AI Generated Content would soon take over most of the regular, unchanging material on BuzzFeed. This came right after the company decided to close its well-known news team, which had even won a Pulitzer Prize. The focus narrowed heavily onto AI-driven entertainment instead.
Things did not turn out as hoped. The new AI-powered quizzes ended up feeling flat and uninteresting to many visitors.
Before long, the platform started releasing full stories written entirely by machines, but these pieces came across as messy, filled with repeated ideas, and low in quality. After that early jump in value, the stock price crashed hard. Right now, the shares trade for roughly seventy cents apiece.
Three full years have passed since that bold switch to AI, and the results look grim. The latest earnings update for 2025 showed a huge net loss of 57.3 million dollars. In the official filing, leaders openly admitted serious worries, noting there is substantial doubt about whether the business can keep operating much longer without major changes.
The finance chief, Matt Omer, explained that the team is exploring different options to ease cash flow problems. He pointed out some progress on the debt side, saying they had cut more than sixty-five percent off what used to be over one hundred eighty million dollars in borrowings from three years earlier.
At the same time, they trimmed everyday expenses and got rid of several property leases. Still, old obligations from the past continue to weigh heavily on daily operations.
Despite the tough numbers and clear warnings, Peretti shows no sign of stepping away from artificial intelligence. Instead, he talks about plans to launch fresh AI-based applications for users sometime during the current year.
The once-lively digital media brand now stands at a difficult crossroads, where heavy bets on machine-generated content have led to deep financial trouble rather than the growth everyone once imagined.
Other Stories You May Like