You’re a media company now. Whether you know it or not.

Barbara Peng spent years running one of the most recognizable brands in business media. Newly out of the CEO seat at Business Insider, she joins Rapid Response for a candid conversation about the state of journalism, the future of trust, and what leaders in every industry need to understand about operating in an AI world. She reflects on her tenure at Business Insider — the pivot back to the brand’s core, the layoffs, the AI-powered paywall that actually worked — and makes the case that media’s resistance to AI isn’t a journalism problem, it’s a business problem. Peng also lands on the insight that may be the most important thing any leader needs to hear right now: it doesn’t matter how fast the technology moves if your organization is too afraid to experiment with it. The sweet spot isn’t the capability. It’s the rate of digestion.