Memo: BuzzFeed plans to rely on OpenAI to enhance its quizzes and personalize its content while humans offer ideas, “cultural currency”, and “inspired prompts”

CEO Jonah Peretti intends for artificial intelligence to play a larger role in the company this year

Wall Street Journal 2023-01-27 Alexandra Bruell

Context & Ripple Effects

BuzzFeed’s plan established an early division of labor for generative AI: machine-produced personalization and interactive output, with staff positioned around concepts and prompts. It was followed by AI-written personalized quiz narratives and, later, a Tasty recipe chatbot tied to plans for personalized subscription services.

The subsequent coverage shows the strategy extending beyond quizzes into both audience products and search-oriented publishing, including AI-generated travel posts produced outside the editorial staff. That makes the memo a useful marker of BuzzFeed’s move from experimenting with a tool to applying it across formats.

First-order effects

BuzzFeed shifts quiz and content production toward OpenAI-assisted personalization, while its human contributors are assigned ideation, cultural framing, and prompt creation.
Jonah Peretti’s plan gives BuzzFeed a basis to turn interactive formats into individualized experiences rather than publish one fixed version for every reader.

Second-order effects

BuzzFeed’s later Infinity Quizzes and Botatouille show how the same OpenAI relationship can be applied to engagement products and prospective subscription services, broadening the commercial uses of its brands.
Other digital publishers face pressure to test AI-generated output as BuzzFeed moves from personalized entertainment into SEO-oriented articles; G/O Media later said it would publish more AI-generated stories after its initial failures.

Third-order effects

If publishers retain humans mainly for editorial direction while models generate personalized variants, the durable competition shifts toward distinctive brands, audience data, and product distribution rather than the volume of publishable copy.
The pattern points to a media market in which generative AI is embedded in consumer experiences as well as newsroom workflows, making the boundary between content, recommendation, and conversational product less distinct.

The trend: Digital publishers are commercializing generative AI first through personalized, high-engagement formats and then across broader content workflows.

Discussion

@mcc@mastodon.social @mcc@mastodon.social on mastodon
Meanwhile, as mentioned, businesses are not just writing software to be dependent on OpenAI's propreitary APIs but retooling entire business models around it. …
@simonwhistler Simon Whistler on x
Someone at Buzzfeed asked ChatGPT what the best way to use ChatGPT for Buzzfeed was. And now this. And they probably got a raise. https://www.wsj.com/...
@lokayfox5 Jim Lokay on x
Concerned about the impact of #AI on the journalism industry. @Buzzfeed's decision to use AI for content creation could lead to job loss & decreased quality. Let's prioritize human expertise & creativity in the newsroom. #JournalismMatters
@samitsarkar Samit Sarkar on x
a sentence to put on journalism's tombstone if I've ever seen one: “BuzzFeed remains focused on human-generated journalism in its newsroom, a spokeswoman said Thursday.” https://www.wsj.com/...
@northead Edoardo Maggio on x
If you squint you can already see the 2024 article where it's reported how this was an absolute disaster https://twitter.com/...
@gregpak Greg Pak on x
AI is about to make everything just a little to a whole lot worse. https://twitter.com/...
@markets @markets on x
BuzzFeed shares surged by around 130% on news that it plans to use OpenAI to make some of its content https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@je_somerton James Somerton on x
Considering AI essentially learns from copying existing works, I feel like companies that start using it to “write” content are going to have an avalanche of plagiarizm lawsuits on their hands. https://www.wsj.com/...
@roricomics Rori Rori on x
Something that pops out to me is the repeated use of “creativity” in association with machine-generated writing. I think this is almost certainly used as a wedge-in to say they can copyright these works. https://twitter.com/...
@ktmboyle Katherine Boyle on x
I left journalism a decade ago when everyone was certain this would happen imminently. The future often takes a while, but inevitably, it arrives. https://twitter.com/...
@jessicalessin Jessica Lessin on x
This is interesting. It is also what ChatGPT would write if you told it to write an article about what would be next for BuzzFeed. https://www.wsj.com/...
@jjvincent James Vincent on x
Here's the memo to BuzzFeed staff from CEO Jonah Peretti this morning, saying the company will be using AI to “enhance” and “personalize” content. The memo says we can expect to see “AI-powered content” on the site as early as February! —> https://www.theverge.com/... https://twi…
@kevincollier Kevin Collier on x
Somebody's gonna end up with the job of editing this garbage. Will have to be the most soulkilling new job in media since whoever signed up to revive zombie Deadspin. https://www.wsj.com/...
@timmarchman Tim Marchman on x
Robots creating content for robots actually seems in some ways less ridiculous than, for instance, an Apple Store employee badgering me to download an app so I can buy a dongle without having to interact with a human next time. https://www.wsj.com/...
@henereyg Henry Gilbert on x
Media execs think so little of writers, they see the people who make the content they sell as a hindrance, not the reason sites exist. This is just their current attempt to not pay talent for their work, and I hope this fails utterly https://twitter.com/...
@juwanthewriter @juwanthewriter on x
Rather than learning the lesson from CNet's PR Nightmare this month, media executives think *now* is the perfect time to rush into using AI generated content,,, because at least they're announcing it! 💀 https://twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
Artists aren't wrong to worry about AI coming for their jobs. It's already come for the journalist jobs at CNet & Buzzfeed. Tech disruption has a human cost and it's now quite clear we have no solutions for the displaced workers. Gig work? Drive Ubers? https://www.wsj.com/...
@jimprosser Jim Prosser on x
Hard to read the BuzzFeed/ChatGPT announcement as anything other than a Hail Mary to feed the stock price, which was sub-$1 most of December and January. If people aren't coming for quizzes and listicles now, what will AI do to change that?
@fidmart85 Fidel Martinez on x
“BuzzFeed remains focused on human-generated journalism in its newsroom, a spokeswoman said Thursday.” Words that truly inspire confidence https://www.wsj.com/...
@jon_christian Jon Christian on x
Something incredibly depressing about all these outlets announcing plans to grind out content with AI faster than it can be scrutinized https://www.wsj.com/...
@mattmitovich Matt Mitovich on x
Reading this made me ILL, especially when so many excellent writers have been laid off in recent days/weeks/months. https://www.wsj.com/...
@bendwalsh Ben Walsh on x
Deep irony here is that ChatGPT relies on sweatshop labor to operate https://www.wsj.com/...
@blowdart Barry Dorrans on x
All that money poured into AI and it's going to be used to write “Which housewife of Atlanta are you?” https://www.wsj.com/...
@dandock Daniel Dockery on x
The amount of writers and artists that this shit is going to eventually put out of work will be catastrophic. https://twitter.com/...
@kylebuchanan Kyle Buchanan on x
They used to have Quinta Brunson and now they have AI https://twitter.com/...
@rosiegray Rosie Gray on x
I don't even know what to say lol. This is bleak stuff guys https://twitter.com/...
@soalexgoes A.A. De Levine on x
i hope everyone laid off took as many rolls of toilet paper and organic puffed chickpea snack products as they were able to carry. https://twitter.com/...
@adribbleofink Aidan Moher on x
Cars have horsepower, AIs are gonna have humanpower before long. https://twitter.com/...
@rcmacleod Riley MacLeod on x
“Human-generated journalism” is when I see writers tweeting on deadline and I reply “where is your blog” https://twitter.com/...
@patrickklepek Patrick Klepek on x
putting “human-generated journalism” on my resume https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@paultassi Paul Tassi on x
my “we are focused on ‘human generated journalism’” announcement is raising a lot of questions already answered by my announcement https://twitter.com/...
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
what the heck is “human-generated journalism.” AI cannot do proper journalism https://twitter.com/...
@strngwys Roberto Baldwin on x
This will end with 400 hot takes. all of which will point our the dozens of errors and plagarism this system will introduce and NO ONE AT THE TOP LEVEL WILL CARE. Le sigh https://twitter.com/...
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
BuzzFeed's up 171% on the year, getting millions from Facebook, and AI is gonna write stories. Boom. https://twitter.com/...
@yoda Drew Olanoff on x
Totally cool if our industry had perfected reasonable transparency but yeah. https://twitter.com/...
@mylesudland Myles Udland on x
“Pivot to ChatGPT” is the new “pivot to video” https://www.wsj.com/...
@katehydeny Kate Hyde on x
Just when I thought AI couldn't get any worse it starts being used to keep Buzzfeed on life support. https://twitter.com/...
@jyarow Jay Yarow on x
BuzzFeed worth 2X as much today as it was yesterday. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@davidbelle_ David Belle on x
It has begun. 'BuzzFeed to Use ChatGPT Creator OpenAI to Help Create Some of Its Content Buzzfeed up nearly 100% https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@zerohedge @zerohedge on x
You will never guess how many Buzzfeed workers are about to be fired https://twitter.com/...
@sizpatel Sahil Patel on x
“BuzzFeed remains focused on human-generated journalism in its newsroom.” Human-generated. HUMAN. GENERATED. I be human! I make words! Beep boop scoop. https://www.wsj.com/...
@tomgara Tom Gara on x
“Mr. Peretti expects AI to assist the creative process and enhance the company's content, while humans play the role of providing ideas, “cultural currency,” and “inspired prompts,” he wrote in his memo” https://www.wsj.com/...

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