BuzzFeed cuts a third of its staff, and AI didn’t save it
BuzzFeed has laid off about 180 people, a third of what was left, in the first big cut by its new owner Byron Allen. The company pivoted hard to AI two years ago to reverse its decline. The cuts are a reminder that it did not work, and that AI is now squeezing the whole publishing industry.
July 29, 2026 - 5:33 pm
BuzzFeed bet on AI to rescue itself. This week it laid off another third of its staff. The bet turned out to be insufficient to save the company.
The cuts hit HuffPost, Tasty, and BuzzFeed’s film and TV studio, as reported by the New York Times. These are the first significant changes initiated by Allen since acquiring a controlling stake in May.
A cost-cutting measure, not an AI takeover
It is easy to assume that AI replaced writers, but the reality is more straightforward: Allen is cutting jobs to stem losses. BuzzFeed projects $32 million in annual savings from these layoffs and has seen its ad revenue drop by nearly 20% year over year.
The failed AI pivot
Despite the focus on AI, BuzzFeed’s initial bet did not pay off. In January 2023, founder Jonah Peretti announced that BuzzFeed would use ChatGPT to create quizzes, leading to a brief stock surge. However, the company was later caught publishing AI-generated articles with numerous errors and ultimately shut down its Pulitzer-winning news division the same year. Traffic plummeted, and share prices dropped from around $4 to under 50 cents.
Peretti has since left his role as CEO to lead a new AI unit focused on projects like "BF Island."
AI as a double-edged sword
Ironically, the same technology BuzzFeed is relying on is now hurting the entire industry. AI systems scrape publishers’ content to answer questions directly, thereby reducing traffic and ad revenue. Publishers are fighting back by pursuing streaming deals to reach audiences outside traditional platforms.
BuzzFeed’s struggle highlights its dependency on social media distribution channels, which have since changed their terms and no longer drive the same level of readership as they once did. The AI turnaround was a bet that this time would be different; so far, it has not lived up to expectations.
By Cristian Dina, The Next Web
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