Al-powered ‘Artifact’ news app to shut down

Less than a year after its initial launch, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, have decided to shut down ‘Artifact’, their Artificial Intelligence-powered news application, citing limited market opportunities.

Artifact made its debut in February of last year as a groundbreaking newsreader application, employing advanced machine learning techniques to intricately tailor and personalize user experience. It aggregates news and dishes out to people in a crunched manner.

In a blog post announcing the shutdown, the makers of the app announced, “To our Artifact Users and Partners, We’ve made the decision to wind down operations of the Artifact app. Artifact will continue to operate the core news reading capability through the end of February.”

Systrom clarified that despite Artifact developing a dedicated user base that held a genuine appreciation for the app, the overarching market opportunity fell short of warranting further investment, leading to the decision to discontinue the project.

“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 its launch, Artifact has 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.

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Systrom outlined the transition plan for Artifact, indicating that over the next few weeks, the app will gradually phase out features. This process will commence with the suspension of new post and comment functionalities, while existing posts will persist temporarily as the team streamlines moderation requirements.

The essential news aggregation component of the app will remain functional until the end of February, affording users a window to explore 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.

Artifact’s challenges in finding a distinct product-market fit were likely compounded by the intensified competition in platforms resembling Twitter for conversational engagement. Additionally, the decelerated growth within the news aggregation sector may have further complicated Artifact’s position in the market.

Despite its efforts to stand out with AI-driven elements such as rewritten article summaries, Artifact struggled to establish a cohesive identity.

The app failed to distinctly position itself as a conversation platform, link-sharing service, or AI-enhanced news engine. This lack of clarity, coupled with the complexities of content moderation, posed significant hurdles to scalability.