MANILA, Philippines – The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Wednesday, January 25 (US time), reported details about an agreement between Meta and BuzzFeed for the latter to help generate creator content (paywalled) for Facebook and Instagram. 

The agreement is said to be part of a $10-million deal that was signed in 2022, with both companies looking to capitalize on the creator economy, which sees individual users building audiences on social media platforms by uploading videos and other forms of content, and monetizing these followings with partnerships and sponsorships with brands. 

BuzzFeed will also be providing training to creators to help them build audiences, and is “helping creators understand what makes content resonate widely.” 

The report added that BuzzFeed had historically been among the publishers that Facebook had looked to in order to understand trends and internet culture. In 2016, Meta paid $50 million to a number of publishers, including BuzzFeed, to generate live video content, which had been a big trend at the time. 

Facebook faces a challenge in TikTok, whose users and their videos drew in more than a billion monthly active users in 2022. Meta’s deal with BuzzFeed is an attempt to make more effective creators in terms of drawing and keeping eyes glued to its platforms.

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The WSJ followed up on the report on the Meta-BuzzFeed deal about the latter’s interest in using more AI-enabled tools (paywalled) in 2023, including those from OpenAI, the company behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. 

One example of the company’s proposed uses of AI includes personalized quizzes that can generate unique write-ups out of a user’s responses.

CEO Jonah Peretti in a memo to employees and reviewed by the WSJ, said he expected AI to assist in the creative process, with humans playing the role of providing ideas with “inspired prompts.” In 15 years, he expects AI to be advanced enough to help “create, personalize, and animate the content itself.” 

Some employees have expressed concern about the memo, specifically with regards to the current issues surrounding the use of copyrighted artwork in training art-generating AI, whether the use of AI would mean a reduction in the BuzzFeed workforce, and concerns on fact-checking AI-generated content. 

At a meeting, Peretti was said to have told staff that BuzzFeed’s approach would be to make creative use of AI technology, and that using it merely to cut costs and produce low-quality content would be a terrible use of the technology. – Rappler.com.