Forbes CEO shares its AI strategy vision

Forbes CEO Sherry Phillips sent out the following to the staff on Tuesday:

Hi all,

Last week, a group of leaders from across our company gathered for an off-site to focus on how our business can lead in AI and strategically transform with it in these fast-moving times.

As we evolve and build for growth, AI is a critical component. We are actively working on our AI manifesto that will help us align our AI initiatives toward a cohesive strategic vision.

As part of that, we must:

1. Find ways to create revenue-related opportunities with trusted AI leaders;
2. Create more engaging audience experiences;
3. Leverage AI, as a tool, to create more efficiencies and make our work together easier;
4. Stay true and work to protect our trusted, credible, human journalism.
5. Ensure that any AI opportunities and projects uphold our trusted brand reputation. Projects should be reflective of our brand and what we stand for.

Our culture of collaboration and curiosity sets us apart from other media brands, along with our brand that stands for success now and for the future.

As a team, we are always looking at the impact of AI and search on our traffic and business models. Thankfully, we had the foresight to diversify our revenue streams many years ago, far before many of our competitors, so that we aren’t reliant on one stream of income.

We have continued to innovate and come up with fresh, big ideas – like our Top Creators List – which reached a potential readership of 1.5B+, earned 5.16B+ total potential impressions via social media. And Randall Lane has another big initiative for 2026, which we’ll be announcing next week.

Importantly, we are also coming up with strategies that won’t be as reliant on search traffic, but more so on off-platform opportunities – like newsletters, live events, social media, audio, video and more.  Events like our AI 50 Celebration event that took place in SF on Monday, which convened top AI leaders and list makers, and even the Mayor of San Francisco, are showing how we at Forbes have a powerful voice in these communities and conversations.

Each one of us plays a part in this evolution. There are small things we can all do to grow, learn and evolve that embraces the ethos of who we are – a culture of experimentation. I’ve been challenging myself to use AI at least once a day- using it for small things like a asking a quick question, looking for a lifehack or using AI to consume things in audio. For example, I asked GoogleLM to create a podcast of this memo, and it delivered it here.  Building new habits and embracing change is hard, but we’re in this together.

I look forward to sharing more on our developing AI strategy and approach soon. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a good July 4^th holiday.

-Sherry