Arena Group, Publisher Behind Sports Illustrated's Fake AI Writers, Rebrands as "Paradium.AI"
Published · curated by AI Is Going Just Great
Source: futurism.com ↗
"Paradium.AI isn't an iteration of past web models. It's designed for the future of digital media."
The Arena Group, the media company that in 2023 was caught publishing AI-generated fake writers with fabricated headshots in Sports Illustrated, Men's Health, and The Street, has rebranded as an AI company called Paradium.AI. The rebrand, announced Monday via a leaked internal memo, came alongside the acquisition of a content-generation firm called InfoSentience and the launch of an "AI-driven video and article production and distribution platform" called Cutter Studio.
The company lost Sports Illustrated entirely after the original scandal, fired multiple executives including its then-CEO, and has watched readership and its stock price decline steadily since. CEO Paul Edmondson assured staff that the AI pivot would not lead to layoffs, while simultaneously announcing plans to "scale at unprecedented speeds" using automation. Futurism, which broke the original fake-writers story, noted the echoes of BuzzFeed — another struggling digital media company that made a sharp pivot to AI before its editorial operations collapsed.