Summary
- Shutdown: After a year, the co-founders of Instagram’s AI-powered news aggregator service Artifact is shutting down.
- Reason: Future investment is not justified by the market’s limited potential.
- Significance: The decision emphasises how critical it is to identify unsustainable endeavours and proceed.
- Co-founder’s Focus: Kevin Systrom is still worried about the difficulties facing the news industry and wants to use AI to help.
- News App Environment: Personalised machine learning made Artefact unique, but it still falls into the same category as earlier failed attempts like Pulse and Zite.
Table of Contents
Overview
Following a year of operation, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, have announced the end of operations of their AI-powered news aggregator app, Artifact. This decision was primarily motivated by the realization that there wasn’t a substantial enough market possibility for the app to warrant additional expenditure.
Significance of Business Needs
Systrom, who is also the CEO of Artifact, highlighted the significance of knowing when a business needs to make difficult choices in a blog post. He noted that in order to enable the team to concentrate on more recent and significant endeavors that have the potential to reach a wider audience, it is critical to recognize when an opportunity isn’t as big as anticipated.
Despite the closure of the app, Systrom nowadays expressing concern about the situation of news publications, saying that many people are stopping their work or they are having difficulties. In particular, he wants to use technological development such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) for scalability to contribute to the development, maintenance and support of these institutions.
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Artifact And Clickbait
In January 2023, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, released the news aggregator app “Artifact.” With features like AI-powered article summaries, in-app commenting, and a special function that lets users designate stories as clickbait and subsequently rewrite them using AI, the app leveraged artificial intelligence to give its customers a personalized news feed.
Need to Concentrate on Recent Projects
However, the co-founders announced the app’s closing down after a year of operation, realizing that the app’s market opportunity wasn’t large enough to warrant additional investment. Systrom emphasized in a blog post how crucial it is to know when a startup needs to make difficult choices and concentrate on more recent, significant projects that can reach a larger audience. Despite the app’s demise, Systrom voiced concerns about the situation of news publications nowadays, pointing out that many are closing their doors or are having difficulties. In particular, he wants to use technological developments like artificial intelligence (AI) for scalability in order to contribute to the growth, maintenance, and support of these institutions.
Other News App
Artifact tackles news aggregation differently than other news apps. It has a feature not found in most other news apps: it employs machine learning to customize news information for its users. Other personalized news applications, including Pulse and Zite, haven’t been able to get enough popularity. Another customized news app that combines news reading, user comments, and curation recommendations is called Pocket. Devices also come with pre-installed apps as Google News and Apple News.
Disclaimer:
AI was used to conduct research and help write parts of the article. We primarily use the Gemini model developed by Google AI. While AI-assisted in creating this content, it was reviewed and edited by a human editor to ensure accuracy, clarity, and adherence to Google's webmaster guidelines.
