News App, Artifact Is Shutting Down Just A Year After Launch

For those unaware, Artifact is the news app Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger created last year. It is an AI-driven system to suggest news that users might like to read. However, the sad piece of news is that it didn’t catch on with enough people for the Artifact team to continue making the app. That’s why Artifact is shutting down just a year after launch. CEO Kevin Systrom stated in a blog post:

“We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way. The app is beginning to wind down today. Users can no longer add new comments or posts, and Artifact will still let you read the news through the end of February.”

Instagram Co-founders Are Shutting Down Their News App, Artifact

The app was launched at the end of January 2023. After that, many new features made their way to the app to facilitate users. For instance:

• AI-powered article summaries
• ability to comment on articles within Artifact
• the ability to mark articles as clickbait and then rewrite them using AI.

In addition to that, the news app not only focuses on the news but also lets people post links to share amazing stuff on the web. It has many Twitter-like features. According to Systrom, Artifact features like comments and posts needed a large amount of moderation and oversight that it doesn’t have the staff to support. Systrom also claims that the team of eight people working on Artifact will go separate ways. He seems personally quite excited to continue building new things. It would not be wrong to say that the opportunities for new ideas in the realm of AI seem limitless. So, let’s wait and watch what new comes. Stay tuned for new updates!