The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered news app Artifact, which was developed by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, the inventors of Instagram, is closing. The CEO of the app, Systrom, revealed in a blog post on Saturday. Artifact was launched last February as a customized news reading app. The app's developers released the following announcement on their website: "We have decided to shut down the Artifact app's operations, we kindly ask for your understanding. Through the end of February, Artifact will keep up its primary news reading functionality."
“In order to slim down operations, effective on January 12th, we are removing the ability to add new posts and comments. Your existing posts will remain visible to you on your own profile self-view,” the post added.
According to Systrom, the app's creators have been working nonstop to create a fantastic product since it was released a year ago. He did, however, add that the market opportunity is not sufficiently large to justify further investment.
Numerous additional features had been introduced by Artifact, including the capacity to label stories as clickbait, enable comments on articles within the app, and generate article summaries powered by AI. It also had features like an X-like post feature and the ability for users to publish links to share interesting content online. Another view of Artifact was that it was a more recent iteration of Google Reader, an RSS newsreader that the search engine behemoth had discontinued in 2013. Artifact is a newsreader that tailors the user experience with machine learning.
According to Systrom, a number of periodicals are currently having trouble or are closing. While major publishers have "tense" connections with top technological companies, local news has all but disappeared.
