BuzzFeed entered this week carrying a disclosure it made just days earlier: the company reported a net loss of $57.3 million last year and stated it has “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern. That context hung over everything that followed at SXSW in Austin.
At the conference, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti unveiled a spin-off called Branch Office — a new entity focused on consumer-facing AI apps built around creativity and community. The announcement arrived mid-slideshow glitch, and the demos that followed drew silence and, at best, polite laughter from the audience.
“We’ve been working on this secretly for over a year, and we’ve learned a lot from the BuzzFeed platform about what is coming with new kinds of AI formats,” Peretti said. He framed AI as a mechanism for connecting people around what he described as “pillars of culture, and taste, and community.”
What Branch Office Actually Built
Bill Shouldis, a director of product at BuzzFeed and founder of Branch Office, presented two apps. The first, BF Island, is a group chat platform with AI-powered photo editing tools. Its differentiator is an in-app editorial library of internet trends and memes — think the McDonald’s CEO burger taste-test moment or niche drama like “frame-mogging” — designed to prompt users into creating AI photos tied to fast-moving cultural moments. The editorial team curates these references specifically for what Peretti called a “very online” audience.
The second app, Conjure, draws an obvious comparison to BeReal — once-a-day prompts pushing users to photograph the world around them rather than themselves. A demo prompt asked, “What lies between the trees and the moon?,” leading to a reel of dark, atmospheric imagery and a whispered tagline. The app also features what Shouldis described as an “AI spirit for a CEO,” a detail that generated more confusion than clarity in the room.
A third product, Quiz Party, lets users take BuzzFeed‘s signature quizzes with friends and share results socially. The format is familiar territory for the company.
The Retention Question Nobody Could Answer
During the Q&A, an audience member pointed directly at the BeReal parallel — the app lost users once the novelty faded and ultimately sold to Voodoo. What would Conjure do differently to hold people’s attention? Shouldis said the app would evolve “and have different types of things happening and not just be exactly what it is today,” referencing potential integrations of video, audio, and prototyping using Claude Code.
Peretti offered a broader framing for the strategy: “In a way, software is the new content.” The logic behind the pivot is that AI-accelerated development allows faster iteration, which could sustain engagement over time. According to the announcement, BuzzFeed plans to focus this year on its Studio IP alongside these new AI apps as part of its effort to address liquidity challenges.
The company said it is actively engaged in strategic conversations aimed at resolving those financial pressures.
Photo by Carlos Gil on Unsplash
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