Business Insider fires 21% of staff in AI pivot "away from journalism toward greed"

Business Insider is "going all-in" on the plagiarism machine.

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  May 29, 2025 | 7:20pm
Photo by Alex Wong (Getty Images)
News News A.I.
Business Insider fires 21% of staff in AI pivot
Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

For years, Silicon Valley has been telling the public that AI will be huge. They say it’s unstoppable and that we better get used to it, even though it is a money loser, only helpful for making fascist art, environmentally destructive, and can’t even give users the correct date. Nevertheless, even though these things are inaccurate, biased, and prone to hallucinating, Business Insider, using the forethought of a goldfish, is cutting 21% of its staff and “going all-in on AI” and live events, CEO Barbara Peng announced in an email to employees today. We hope no one depends on Business Insider for accurate information because it’s about to look like the Chicago Sun-Times’ sloppy and embarrassing summer reading guide filled with fake books.

In a statement, the Insider Union called the layoffs by the multi-billion-dollar European media firm Axel Springer, which also owns Politico, a “brazen pivot away from journalism toward greed.”

“Let’s be clear: This is far from anything new,” the Union’s statement reads. “This is the third round of layoffs in as many years, and it is unacceptable that union members and other talented coworkers are again paying the price for the strategic failures of Business Insider‘s leadership.”

Nevertheless, Peng reports that “over 70% of Business Insider employees are already using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly (our goal is 100%), and we’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday use cases that help us work faster, smarter, and better.” Despite it being a really cool move to plug a different company in the layoff email, Business Insider should share some of those use cases because the world still wants to know what ChatGPT is for other than helping the lonely talk to themselves and spreading misinformation. Still, it’s nice to know that some of Business Insider‘s coverage will be bolstered by plagiarism.

“Shockingly, in the same email announcing layoffs, management also says it’s ‘going all-in on AI,’ patting themselves on the back about AI use in our newsroom,” the Union continues. “To say this was tone-deaf to include in an email on layoffs is an understatement. Our position as a union is that no AI tool or technology should—or can—take the place of human beings.”

Don’t worry, there’s more vague AI boosterism in the email, with Peng saying they’ve “launched multiple AI-driven products to better serve our audiences—from gen-AI onsite search to AI-powered paywall.” We’re going to need a breather after reading the words that every CEO dreams of hearing: “AI-powered paywall.”

Feel free to read the whole letter on Business Insider, but from one website that needlessly humiliated itself with inaccurate and widely despised AI-generated articles to another, good luck with all that!

 
Join the discussion...