Buzzfeed to use AI to personalize content, but steer clear of news for now

US-headquartered news and content publication, Buzzfeed, announced in a memo that it will use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to ‘personalize’ content on its platform. The announcement comes a day after fellow US publication, Cnet’s editor in chief, Connie Guglielmo, published an open note explaining the company’s trials, tribunals and errors with using AI to publish articles. However, Buzzfeed clarified that the publication is not looking to use AI ‘in the newsroom’ as yet.

In a memo that is available in public domain, Buzzfeed chief executive Jonah Peretti said, “Working hard for our partners and operating cost efficiently, while essential, will only get us so far. To fulfill the promise of our mission, we need to build a stronger business foundation by executing a forward-looking strategy. Over the next three years, the future of digital media will be defined by two major trends: creators, and AI.”

Explaining how this ‘AI’ will work, Peretti said, “The creative process will increasingly become AI-assisted and technology-enabled. If the past 15 years of the internet have been defined by algorithmic feeds that curate and recommend content, the next 15 years will be defined by AI and data helping create, personalize, and animate the content itself. Our industry will expand beyond AI-powered curation, to AI-powered creation.”

The said creation will start in part with Buzzfeed’s non-news content, which would include the ability for users to add cues to create personalized stories on a variety of the platform’s entertainment content services — including Buzzfeed Quiz.

However, the company is consciously staying away from the use of AI in its newsroom, for now. According to a report by The Verge, Buzzfeed will refrain from the kind of issues that Cnet notably faced recently. However, the report confirmed that Buzzfeed’s AI tools will be powered by OpenAI — although it would not necessarily be the much-discussed ChatGPT for now.

Word regarding Buzzfeed’s use of AI in content personalization gave a clear boost to its stock prices in the US, which gained 119% over the past one day since the announcement — including an 11.2% rise in after-hours trading. Investors typically see the use of advanced technologies as a potential boost to digital advertisements, which have slumped for online media houses and social media platforms alike over the past one year.

Shares of Buzzfeed, which listed at a high of close to $10 in March 2021, dropped more than 93% to below $0.7 at the end of last month, before the over-100% bounce-back since the company’s announcement regarding the use of OpenAI tools for personalized content creation.

“AI opens up a new era of creativity, where creative humans like us play a key role providing the ideas, cultural currency, inspired prompts, IP, and formats that come to life using the newest technologies,” Peretti summed up in his memo — a mood that investors seem to have echoed for now.