AUSTIN, TX — March 13, 2026 — BuzzFeed, Inc. (Nasdaq: BZFD) today unveiled Branch Office, a new spinoff company that has been secretly developing a slate of apps designed to reinvent how people connect on the internet. The first two are launching now. More are coming this year.
Branch Office operates independently, with its own founders, its own mandate, and a product philosophy built for a world where AI has blurred the lines between software and content. BuzzFeed saw a gap no one else was filling, and built a dedicated company, quietly, to move fast enough to actually fill it.
“We’re accelerating into an era of infinite fake news, slop, personalization bubbles, and cuts at the organizations that actually care about content,” said Jonah Peretti. “We need a solution. Branch Office is that solution.”
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IN THE LAB
BuzzFeed has been running AI experiments for years — a game where you raised a nepo baby, a chatbot that lets you attempt to talk a Karen down in a Starbucks line. Through hundreds of projects the team learned what AI could do when it wasn’t trying to replicate existing models of static content production, but building totally new experiences that would not have been possible before the advent of GenAI. While most social media companies are using AI to keep people isolated in their own algorithmic feeds, BuzzFeed’s projects were built on the premise that creativity and engagement can bring people closer together, help them connect with their friends.
THE PHILOSOPHY: NINTENDO, NOT BIG TECH
Led by founder Bill Shouldis, Branch Office operates with a clear vision: treat software as a creative medium. Build fast. Iterate constantly. Let real communities, real culture, and genuine taste shape what gets made.
The guiding philosophy comes from an unlikely place: Nintendo. The gaming giant’s principle of “lateral thinking with withered technology,” taking maximum creativity out of what already exists, is Branch Office’s north star. We don’t need to build our own foundational models or compete with Big Tech. We just ask one question: what’s already here, and how do we make it genuinely fun?
When Branch Office looked at the market, they saw two camps: companies building AI to replace humans, and companies building AI to simulate them. Branch Office is doing neither.
“Most companies are using AI to replace human creativity,” said Bill Shouldis, Founder, Branch Office. “We’re leveraging it to connect people.”
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