A new day, a new dawn, a new role on the AI beat

Why I'll be taking a break from my Substack...for now

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was watching the sun rise over Monterey Bay in California and communing with the local sea lions and otters, before heading to San Jose for several days of communing about all things Nvidia at their annual GTC conference.

Now I’m back in New Jersey, commuting into Manhattan to take on a new role covering the AI beat: After two years at VentureBeat, I’m now officially an AI reporter at Fortune, where I’m super-excited to be working with the fabulous Jeremy Kahn, Alexei Oreskovic and the rest of the Fortune team.

As I said in my final VentureBeat column from last week, when I started covering AI in April 2022, I immediately realized that the AI beat had turned into a wild ride. The publication gave me a tremendous opportunity to take on the AI beat six months before OpenAI launched ChatGPT and generative AI exploded into the public’s consciousness.

To be honest, I explained, I panicked at first. But I was a good listener and eager to learn. And for two years I did just that, learning from fellow journalists and industry analysts, startup CEOs and Big Tech execs, consultants and engineers, researchers and policy leaders, lawyers and professors. I continue to lean on the experts in industry and academia to guide my work, as I strive to provide what I hope is balanced and nuanced reporting around an increasingly hyped-up and confusing AI landscape.

I’m thrilled to take that experience and expand on it at Fortune — but now I need to 100% focus and settle into my new role. That’s why I’m pressing pause on my AI Extra Substack — for now.

I’d love to find the right way to share my Fortune stories and offer some behind-the-scenes reporting takes. I’m also hoping that I can continue to chat with the Substack AI community and learn from you all.

I truly believe in Substack’s unique value to professional journalists who want to share their work outside of social media channels and both build and participate in a community. But at the moment, I need to devote myself fully and deeply to my Fortune AI reporting. And selfishly, of course I hope you’ll follow my work there!

In the meantime, I’m still available to DM here and you’ll find me on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Threads. If you have any scoopity-scoop news tips or want to share insider info on background, my Signal is sharongoldman.43.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back!

Sharon