Why Buzzfeed's Stock Is Popping Off Thursday

Buzzfeed Inc’s BZFD stock skyrocketed Thursday, at one point trading up more than 180%. The stock opened Thursday’s trading session at about $1.30, and was trading as high as $2.72 Thursday afternoon.

Wall Street Journal reported that Meta Platforms META is paying Buzzfeed millions of dollars to create content for Facebook, Instagram and other social outlets. Additionally, Buzzfeed’s CEO said Thursday that the company will utilize Chat GPT and other AI tools to create comprehensive quizzes and other pieces of content for Buzzfeed.

The CEO, Jonah Peretti, said in a memo that Buzzfeed will remain committed to human-generated content in the newsroom for journalism, but that Chat GPT and AI tools can help the company create other types of content. Peretti sent out a memo to Buzzfeed employees Thursday outlining the new role of AI within the company. 

Buzzfeed went public via a SPAC in December 2021. Since then, the stock has been under tremendous pressure, dropping from $10 to lows of $0.62 a share earlier this year. But, Thursday’s price action is a welcome change for investors who have endured months of pain. 

In fact, Thursday is the first time since June 2022 that Buzzfeed’s stock has traded above $2.50 a share.