Instagram Founders’ News App, Artifact, Is Shutting Down

Image via Kevin Systrom

Artifact, a tech-driven news app created by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, has announced its closure after just one year of operation, a decision driven by market limitations.

Recently acclaimed as the “everyday essential app of the year” by Google Play Store, Artifact initially made waves as a news-reading and curation platform. Its primary appeal lay in its artificial intelligence-driven features, such as summarizing news, rewriting headlines, and discovering content.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The shutdown was shared by Systrom in a blog post, where he acknowledged that although Artifact had found a loyal core user base, the market opportunity wasn’t significant enough to continue, forcing the team to “wind down” on its efforts.

Systrom emphasized the importance of recognizing such realities in the startup world, noting, “It’s easy for startups to ignore this reality, but often making the tough call earlier is better for everyone involved.”

He added: “The biggest opportunity cost is time working on newer, bigger and better things that have the ability to reach many millions of people.”

As Artifact heads towards closure, its core news capabilities will continue to function until the end of February, with existing posts still visible on user profiles for the time being.

However, the ability to add new comments and posts will be disabled due to the necessity for moderation, a resource the team can no longer provide.

Artifact’s fate is reflective of broader challenges within the news aggregator sector, where many platforms are experiencing decreased usage.

For now, Systrom recognizes the critical juncture many news organizations, especially local outlets, are at—struggling to survive or shutting down.

At least on the outside, he remains hopeful, painting a picture of a future where technology, particularly AI, helps bolster media outlets and brings forth scalability and growth.

“My hope is that technology can find ways to preserve, support and grow these institutions and that these institutions find ways of leveraging the scale that things like AI can provide,” Systrom noted.

“I am certain there are bright minds working on ideas that will continue to surprise and delight us in all these areas,” the Instagram co-founder concluded, sharing that his team is “optimistic about the future.”

[via TechCrunch and Artifact Team, cover image via Kevin Systrom]