News app Artifact by Instagram cofounders is shutting down

Artifact, the AI-driven news app cofounded by Instagram's Kevin Systrom, is shutting down after failing to find a large enough market, the company announced on its blog. "We've been working hard to build Artifact into a product that millions of people could use every day," the company wrote. "But, unfortunately, we haven't found a way to do that."

Artifact launched in January 2023 and quickly gained a following for its personalized news feed and ability to create and share posts. However, the company says it was not able to attract enough users to make the business sustainable. "We're incredibly proud of what we've built, and we're grateful to our users for their support," the company wrote. "We believe that AI has the potential to play a major role in the future of news, and we're hopeful that technology can find ways to preserve and support journalism."

Artifact will continue to operate the core news reading capability through the end of February. In order to slim down operations, effective on January 12th, the company removed the ability to add new posts and comments.