Jacob Ward Joins CNN as On-Air Contributor

WASHINGTON, DC – (June 3, 2026) – Jacob Ward has joined CNN as an on-air contributor, the network announced today. Ward is the founder of The Rip Current, an independent investigative outlet that covers the intersection between business, technology and politics that specifically looks at Big Tech, AI accountability, and corporate power. Ward most recently served as a reporter-in-residence at The Omidyar Network, where he investigated the effects of innovations and how some have concentrated power and eliminated accountability in the modern world.

Ward, a journalist and author, spent more than two decades covering technology, power and democracy for NBC News, Al Jazeera and Popular Science, where he served as editor-in-chief. He was also a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Ward is the author of The Loop: How AI Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back, a book that maps the mechanics of AI and its consequences on human decision making.