BuzzFeed Will Use Artificial Intelligence To Improve Content Writing

BuzzFeed CEO Zeret Peretti: BuzzFeed will use ChatGPT. (photo: twitter @peretti)

JAKARTA - BuzzFeed CEO trusts Peretti sent a memo to staff stating that BuzzFeed will use an AI tool provided by ChatGPT creator OpenAI to "increase" and "personalize" its content.

In the memo, Peretti said AI would be one of the two main trends determining the future of digital media. Peretti said that by 2023, AI-inspired content BuzzFeed will be launched on sites to improve the experience of quizzes, inform their opinion, and personalize content for audiences. The memo was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Our industry will expand beyond AI-powered curation (age), to AI-powered creations (contents), Peretti told The Verge. AI opens a new era of creativity, where creative humans like us play a key role in providing ideas, cultural currencies, inspired prompts, IPs, and formats that become real using the latest technology.

In the example cited by WSJ but not included in the memo, AI can be used to generate personalized rom-com pitches for readers. They will be asked a series of questions, including personal information that will be used to generate sharing outputs.

Peretti noted in a memo that she would share "a review of content to be launched in February at a January 27 rally."

But whether BuzzFeed is considering using AI in his editorial room, the company's VP of communications, Matt Mittenhal, replied, "No."

"I can confirm that we will use OpenAI technology," Mitthenenthal said.

The increasing ability of AI tools such as ChatGPT to write prosa has made technology a lucrative prospect for media companies that have been harmed by the decline in advertising rates.

BuzzFeed, has been experiencing difficulties in the market since going public in December 2021. In June 2022, the company's share price has fallen 40 percent and has continued to decline since then. Following this morning's news that BuzzFeed will use AI to generate content, its share price has risen more than 100 percent.

Although publishers like The Associated Press have used automatic tools to generate stories for nearly a decade, AI tends to be a formula article covering news such as earnings reports and sports results.

Automatic tools are used to enter numbers and results into previously written templates. However, along with the improvement of AI systems, their ability to write more stories has also increased.

The problem is that the more AI is used in story-making, the greater the chance of a mistake. This applies to tools like ChatGPT, which tend to produce "current nonsense", namely, plausible but false information.

Recently, CNET was also criticized for failing to clearly disclose the use of AI in writing a number of articles that offer financial advice in its finance department. The company, which is owned by private equity firm Red Ventures, has stopped using AI tools and says it has found errors in more than half of the articles written with technological assistance.