BuzzFeed, the US-based media company best known for quizzes, listicles and, for a time, Pulitzer Prize winner The journalism department is reinventing itself for the age of artificial intelligence. At least, that’s the pitch.
At the SXSW conference in Austin, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti was introduced The company’s next media foray: a spin-off called Branch Office, which will explore artificial intelligence in consumer-facing apps designed for creativity and connection.
The new company is an extension of experiments BuzzFeed has been running for years using AI technology, Peretti explained, in a presentation that began with glitches in the presentation, before moving on to app demos with silence or polite titillation.
“We’ve been working undercover for over a year, and we’ve learned a lot from the BuzzFeed platform about what’s coming with new kinds of AI formats,” Peretti said. “Using AI is how we connect people, build community around these pillars of culture, taste and community.”
Bill Shouldis, director of product at BuzzFeed and founder of Branch Office, introduced two of the company’s new apps: BF Island and Conjure.
The first product, BF Islandis a group chat platform that offers photo retouching and editing capabilities using artificial intelligence. That’s not exactly groundbreaking technology per se, but that’s not the point.
The key feature here is not the AI toolset, but the in-app library of internet trends and memes, created by an editorial team, which could inspire users to create trending AI photos like McDonald’s CEO trying a burger or the “frame-mogging” drama. (If you don’t know what those are, you’re probably not the “highly online” target audience.)
The other app, Conjure, is similar to BeReal — the once-a-day temporary photo app — except that it appears to instruct users to take daily photos of things other than themselves. (As a reminder, BeReal didn’t get stuck, eventually pulling out of the Voodoo after losing traction.) In the demo, for example, the photo prompt was “What’s between the trees and the moon?”, prompting users to take a photo of the night sky. A series of terrifying images flashed on the screen, followed by a whisper, “What would you imagine?”
We don’t get it, and apparently the audience didn’t either. After the demo, a lone cough could be heard amidst the silence, followed by awkward laughter.
Shouldis then noted that artificial intelligence is also involved in Conjure, as the app has an “AI spirit for a CEO.” (Again what?)
Peretti also introduced Quiz Party, a social app that lets you take BuzzFeed quizzes with friends and share your results.
BuzzFeed’s impressive presentation comes just days after the media company said it had “substantial doubts” on its ability to continue as a business and participated in strategic conversations focused on solving liquidity challenges. The company, which had a net loss of $57.3 million last year, said it would focus this year on its Studio IP and new AI applications like these.
But even the tech crowd at SXSW wasn’t convinced.
As one person pointed out during the post-launch Q&A session, BeReal had struggled to keep people coming back after the novelty wore off. What would an app like Conjure do to address the same retention problem?
Shouldis said the app will evolve “and different types of things will happen and it won’t be exactly what it is today.” He mentioned the ability to integrate things like video, audio, and prototypes with Code Claude to build community.
The principle behind the new apps is not unreasonable: AI can lead to faster software development, which makes it possible for companies to iterate faster and keep people engaged.
“In a way, software is the new content,” Peretti noted.
Of course, before you can repeat, you need to attract users. With its new apps, BuzzFeed seems to have thought more about what AI can do than what people want to do with AI, which isn’t a recipe for success.
