Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are shutting down their AI-powered messaging app Artifact, less than a year after launching.
Almost a year after launching, Artifact, the AI news app, is co-founded by Instagram Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, hired. The decision to cease operations was made due to a lack of market opportunities.
From news reading to a news curation and discovery platform
Originally launched as a news reading app, Artifact evolved into a news curation and discovery platform. The company used AI tools to stay relevant. The app tried to compete through features like summarizing news, rewriting clickbait headlines, and highlighting top content. However, these changes may have distracted from the app's original intent as a simple messaging app.
Artifact faced stiff competition in the Twitter/X alternatives market and saw a decline in usage compared to other platforms in their niche. The app has struggled to establish its identity as a platform for conversation and discovery, a competitor to Pinterest for finding interesting links, or an AI-driven news engine. Since December 14, 2023, Threads has also been operating as a Twitter/X alternative in Europe.
The future of news and AI
Despite Artifact's failure, Systrom believes that news and information remains critical areas for startup investment and that other “bright minds” are working on ideas in this space. The decision to close Artifact is intended to make things easier for users by gradually disabling features such as commenting and posting.
Artifact, an ambitious AI-based news app, is shutting down. Despite the notable backgrounds of its founders, Artifact was unable to gain enough market share to continue. This marks the end of a short but interesting experiment in AI-powered news publishing. Kevin Systrom had on July 16, 2010 uploaded the first photo to Instagram.
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