CNN is laying off around 100 people as part of a major overhaul that includes changes to the business and experimentation with artificial intelligence, the network reported on Wednesday.
The changes, announced by network chief Mark Thompson, constitute a “key milestone in the transformation of CNN,” he told employees in a memo.
“Turning a great news organization towards the future is not a one-day affair. It happens in stages and over time,” Thompson's memo continued.
“Today’s announcements do not answer every question or seek to solve every challenge we face. However, they do represent a significant step forward and I hope you will read about them in that spirit.”
Among the changes planned for the network include a digital subscription business hoped to generate over $1 billion in revenue, and the merger of the network's domestic, international, and digital newsrooms into one.
“We want to build on CNN.com’s reach with a new focus on engagement and frequency – how long our users spend with us and how often they return – by improving the quality of the product experience and giving users powerful reasons to come back to us more often,” said the memo.
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CNN has experimented with subscription services in the past, with one of its most recent offerings, the CNN+ streaming service, never really getting off the ground and being discontinued quickly.
Regarding CNN's experimentation with AI, the memo stressed the company will “determine how best to safely harness this emerging new technology to serve our audiences and deliver our journalistic goals more effectively and responsively.”
Dramatic improvements in AI language models in recent years have led to a scramble for many companies to try replacing or supplementing some newsroom tasks with them, although some market analysts warn the technology is overhyped and could be driving a stock bubble.
