Zack Sims

I work at the intersection of AI, machine learning, and product — building systems that can be leveraged to drive business impact. At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I lead the Advanced Analytics & AI team, where we ship recommendation models, dynamic paywalls, churn prediction systems, and the pipelines that keep all of it running.

My background is a bit unusual: I studied journalism and statistics at UGA before going deep on machine learning at Georgia Tech. Initially, I wasn't sure how my passion for journalism & statistics would work together. However, that combination — storytelling paired with technical understanding — gave me a unique skillset that has helped me in my analytics career. I enjoy building & creating things, but I also enjoy communicating the value they can drive.

Outside of the AJC, I'm building WiseBites, a full-stack AI platform for gluten-free restaurant discovery. It's a project I care about personally (as my wife has a severe allergy to gluten), and it's let me gain experience building an end-to-end product, with everything from FastAPI backends to vector search to Stripe payments. It's been a fun way to gain experience with AI as a development accelerator, while also working on something I'm passionate about.

When I'm not coding or building, I enjoy traveling with my wife and endurance sports. My wife & I have been all over, but I think our current favorites are Japan, South Africa, Argentina, and the Canary Islands. I ran track & cross country while at the University of Georgia, and the passion for endurance sports stayed with me. I've done 4 marathons (2 majors), 5 Ironman 70.3s, and 1 Ironman. My PBs are 1500 — 3:47, 5000 — 14:07, 10k — 29:56, Marathon — 2:35, IM 70.3 — 4:12. Here's to many more adventures!