Exclusive: Fandom names new CEO for AI era
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Fandom has named Jay Sullivan, a former product leader at Twitter and Facebook, as its new CEO.
Why it matters: The appointment underscores how traditional websites are adapting to an era where audiences spend more time interacting with AI answer engines and watching social video.
What he's saying: "Fandom has created an incredibly passionate fan community whose contributions have built the richest knowledge resource about games and entertainment in the world," Sullivan told Axios.
- "We see amazing opportunity for Fandom in enabling these fans to engage even more deeply with the IP they love, in real time, as we continue to evolve the platform," he added.
Context: Founded in 2004 by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, Fandom has grown into a collection of entertainment and gaming sites.
- The company, backed by private equity firm TPG, has more than 350 million unique visitors across 250,000 "wikis" and includes media brands like GameSpot, Metacritic and TV Guide.
Zoom in: "Jay Sullivan's experience working on products with massive reach, and understanding of the power of community, makes him the perfect leader to take Fandom into the future," Wales said in a statement.
- That experience includes managing consumer and revenue product development at Twitter. Prior, he led development of Facebook's AI assistant and worked on the privacy and integrity product teams for Messenger and Instagram.
- Sullivan was also previously chief product officer of Groupon and spent nearly seven years at Mozilla.
- Since leaving Twitter in 2022, he has served on the boards of messaging app Signal, e-commerce business WineDirect and animal welfare group San Francisco SPCA while advising and investing.
The big picture: Digital publishers like Fandom are racing to adapt as AI reshapes how people consume information.
- Platforms that once depended on Google traffic are investing more in becoming direct destinations and building fan experiences.
