A reviews site embroiled in AI scandal is back from the dead

Last summer, the staff at Gannett’s consumer reviews site Reviewed received terrible news: the media giant was shuttering the entire vertical and would be laying off dozens of employees. Effective November 1st, Reviewed would cease operations. Gannett blamed Google’s changing search algorithm, which had “degraded [its] business model.” The shuttering was a blow to the more than 70 employees, who, in Gannett’s words, would be “affected” by the decision. The closure came after an already tumultuous period: in 2023, the NewsGuild of New York, which represents unionized Reviewed workers, publicly accused Gannett of running AI-generated product reviews on the site. The content was pulled after staff outcry.

You wouldn’t know any of this backstory — or that Reviewed is technically shut down — if you were browsing the site today: a smattering of articles on the homepage tout the best rakes, slow cookers, and video doorbells of 2025. Reviewed published nearly two dozen articles during 2025’s CES, and its Instagram page posted intermittent updates from the trade show event. The homepage appears unchanged — there’s no notice for readers that the site is supposed to be dead. It trudges on like a zombie, promising thousands of hours of product testing by trustworthy experts.

Many of the articles promising “the best” products of 2025 are, in fact, old stories retrofitted with new, timely headlines. An article for the best patio heaters, for example, indicates the story was actually last updated two years ago in January 2023 and written by a staff member who no longer works at Reviewed. 

When the shuttering of the site was announced, the understanding of former staff was that the website would remain online for a period of time. What they didn’t anticipate was that their existing work would be updated and that Reviewed would continue on as if nothing had happened. 

“As far as we were aware, the site was going to shut down permanently, and multiple writers were saving PDFs of their work in case the site went completely offline,” says a former staffer, who requested anonymity due to separation agreements they signed. “None of us were aware that the site was going to continue being updated, nor that our bylines would be updated and promoted on the site.”

So what exactly is going on at Reviewed, a site that’s supposed to be shut down? Even former staff members have been unsure but have watched as their former workplace trudges on.

One name reappears across different pages: StackCommerce, an online shopping platform that works with publishers to create affiliate marketing content. Some of the stories from CES on Reviewed are authored by people who say they work at StackCommerce. A page for open jobs redirects to StackCommerce’s careers page, as does Reviewed’s privacy policy page. StackCommerce’s chief operating officer is the former general manager of Reviewed, according to LinkedIn. Gannett did not respond to The Verge’s questions and instead directed us to StackCommerce.

Reached for comment, StackCommerce CEO Karl House confirmed to The Verge via email that the company acquired Reviewed on December 1st, including the brand, IP, domain, and content, but declined to provide terms of the sale. 

“StackCommerce engaged with Gannett after they announced they were shutting down Reviewed in August 2024,” House said. “StackCommerce has since hired five former Reviewed employees.” 

The acquisition was mostly kept quiet. There appears to have been no formal announcement by either party — until The Verge reached out to StackCommerce in January. Shortly after, StackCommerce shared a blog post announcing the acquisition.

Readers who relied on Reviewed recommendations have likely not realized that the site has changed hands. It’s also not clear how reviews and recommendations are carried out given the new ownership. Many of Reviewed’s editorial promises remain on the site, like the claim that the site spends “thousands of hours” on “tough, objective, hands-on testing” of products. StackCommerce did not respond to questions about the company’s testing process.

“Testing was hands-on and conducted by either dedicated testers from the labs, or knowledgeable experts that would usually test the product (whether it be an appliance or a pair of sneakers) for a significant amount of time, sometimes up to a week or more,” the former Reviewed employee said. It’s not clear how the outlet is deciding the “best” products of 2025 — and from the reader’s perspective, the site looks unchanged. For example, by Gannett’s own admission, the product testing lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, closed last year, yet the website still references an in-lab testing process.

Complicating the matter is that many of the Reviewed staff members who lost their jobs last fall were unionized workers (some employees in senior positions were reassigned elsewhere in USA Today). The relationship between Gannett and Reviewed was contentious: staff had previously walked off the job after they were unable to secure bargaining dates with management.

At the time of the AI saga, the union raised concerns about their members’ futures at Gannett that now seem prescient. 

“It’s an attempt to undermine and replace members of the union whether they’re using AI, subcontractors of a marketing firm, or some combination of both,” the union previously told The Verge in a statement.