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Instagram co-founders’ AI-powered news app Artifact shutting down after just 1 year | Technology News
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Artifact, the AI-driven news aggregation app created by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, is closing down just one year after its launch in January 2023.
In a blog post announcing the shutdown, Systrom explained that while Artifact had developed a loyal user base who loved the app, the overall market opportunity was not large enough to justify continued investment.
“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,” Systrom wrote.
Since launching last year, Artifact added several new features including AI-powered article summaries, the ability to comment on and mark articles as clickbait, and a Twitter-like posting feature. However, these latter features required extensive moderation that Artifact’s small 8-person team could not sufficiently support.
To aid the transition, Artifact will begin winding down features over the next few weeks, starting with disabling the ability to make new posts and comments. Existing posts will remain visible temporarily as the team works to reduce moderation needs. The app’s core news aggregation capability will continue operating through the end of February to give users time to find alternative services.
Systrom remained upbeat about the future despite Artifact’s shutdown, saying he was personally excited to explore new ideas in the AI space which seems full of possibilities. The increased competition in the market for Twitter-like conversation platforms and slowing growth of news aggregators likely contributed to Artifact’s struggles to find a clear product-market fit.
While Artifact tried to differentiate itself through AI-powered features like rewritten article summaries, its identity never fully coalesced into a coherent offering. It hadn’t clearly defined itself as a conversation platform, link sharing service, or AI-enhanced news engine. This diffuse focus coupled with the demands of content moderation made it challenging to scale.
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