Back then, it was hiring a new staffer every day, and developed a Pulitzer Prize winning newsroom.
Fast forward to January 2023 and CEO Jonah Peretti said the company would pivot hard to AI quizzes, and in April the same year, he shut down the newsroom and said that AI would replace most of the static content on the site, Futurism reports.
Three years later, the company’s quizzes didn’t take off and the AI content was underwhelming — leaving the company with a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025.
Doubt about ability to continue
They now say that «there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,» and «we anticipate that we will not have sufficient resources to fund our cash obligations for the next 12 months,» in their quarterly earnings call.
There could be other reasons for this, of course, with MarketWatch saying the company is still saddled with debt from its SPAC merger and going public in 2021.
Doubling down on AI
— The current market value of the company does not reflect the strength of our individual brands, Peretti said, — In other words, we believe the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole.
The company is now seeking «strategic options,» and are considering launching more AI apps, doubling down on their earlier pivot.
BuzzFeed stock is currently trading at $0.70 per share, and has been warned by Nasdaq that they could be trading too low to keep their listing, MarketWatch reports.
Read more: BuzzFeed’s quarterly earnings, Futurism and MarketWatch.