AI news app Artifact from Instagram co-founders may not shut down
Artifact
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger's AI-powered news app Artifact, which was previously planned to shut down, may continue to operate.
Here's What We Know
In January, the company announced the impending end of support for the award-winning app because "the market opportunity was not large enough for further investment." Despite a set closure date of February 2024, Artifact continued to operate.
As it turns out, this was no fluke. Systrom confirmed that he and Krieger are keeping the app for now and exploring ways to develop it further, including a possible deal.
Artifact caused a stir by using AI to personalised search and summarise news from different sources. It offered retelling in a variety of styles, as well as reformulating clickbait headlines.
Since the announcement of Artifact's closure, interest in applying AI to news services has increased. Startups Arc, Feeeed, Bulletin and Particle have implemented their own AI tools for reading and summarising news.
Systrom and Krieger themselves initially funded Artifact to the tune of several million dollars and appear to have the means to keep the app going, at least in the short term.
Go Deeper:
- The Artifact app has an AI-powered text-to-speech feature that will read the news in Snoop Dogg's voice
- Instagram founders shut down AI news app Artifact a year after release
Source: TechCrunch
