Hey Everyone,
If you know me well you know how much of a fan I am of the Consumer news aggregation app Artifact by the former makers of Instagram.
They skillfully managed to wind down the app and got acquired at the midnight hour instead.
Yahoo is buying Artifact, the AI news app from the Instagram co-founders
For reading, Artifact had the most personalized AI recommendations I had ever experienced and I still use this app on a daily or perhaps even an hourly basis.
Sadly though it’s tech will be integrated and not live on in its current form. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Artifact will no longer operate as a standalone app, and its AI-powered personalization technology will be integrated across Yahoo, including the Yahoo News app in the coming months.
Artifact’s technology surfaces content users want to see and becomes more attuned to their interests over time. As a result, users receive a personalized feed of news stories that they want to read. It was like the TikTok of reading news for a while there, but reading news is not something that American consumers, especially younger ones, are much into.
Yahoo gloriously details how the technology Artifact has created will be even more impactful with the scale of the Yahoo News network, ranked the #1 news and information property in the US in 2023. I’m not so sure about that! Outside of TechCrunch, I rarely interact with any yahoo products.
The sad farewell message read as follows:
At least the technology will live on and Kevin got something for the hard work.
“Artifact has become a beloved product and we’re thrilled to be able to continue to grow that technology and further our mission of becoming the trusted guide to digital information and the best curator connecting people to the content that matters most to them,” said Kat Downs Mulder, SVP and General Manager of Yahoo News, in a press release.
Systrom said in the press release that Artifact’s technology has the opportunity to benefit millions of people, and that “Yahoo brings the scale to help the product achieve what we envisioned while upholding the belief that connecting people to the trusted sources of news and information is as critical as ever.” It’s better than just shutting down the app for nothing, I guess.
Yahoo and Artifact
“Yahoo was one of the first to combine human and algorithmic curation of news. Since then, the landscape of machine learning and personalization has changed dramatically and Artifact has innovated with best-in-class technology to meet the moment,” said Kat Downs Mulder, SVP and General Manager of Yahoo News. “Artifact has become a beloved product and we’re thrilled to be able to continue to grow that technology and further our mission of becoming the trusted guide to digital information and the best curator connecting people to the content that matters most to them.”
Yahoo’s acquisition of Artifact closed on March 29, 2024. Artifact’s co-founders, CEO, Kevin Systrom and CTO, Mike Krieger, will work with Yahoo in an advisory capacity during this transition.
The two sides declined to share the cost of the acquisition, but both made clear Yahoo is acquiring Artifact’s tech rather than its team. Truth be told the team was already gutted.
Artifact started off as a simple news app and they experimented boldly with social features before deciding there wasn’t a great path forward rather quickly. I don’t even know how Yahoo is still around? They claim they (Yahoo) serve as a trusted guide for hundreds of millions of people globally, helping them achieve their goals online through our portfolio of iconic products. Maybe the only iconic product I can name is Yahoo Finance.
Verizon Communications is the real own of Yahoo. Verizon Media was acquired by Apollo Funds in 2021. If you want to read the tea leaves of the history it’s actually that Private equity firm Apollo Global Management announced that it had completed its acquisition of Yahoo (formerly known as Verizon Media Group, itself formerly known as Oath) from Verizon. Confusing eh?
News aggregators haven’t had a great time post pandemic on the whole including Smart News. For advertisers, Yahoo Advertising offers omnichannel solutions and powerful data to engage with our brands and deliver results. Perhaps Artifact’s tech will be helpful on some front for Yahoo, but I doubt it.
That they managed to find a buyer for Artifact and its tech is somewhat impressive. Well before TikTok and Douyin, ByteDance had created Toutiao, Artifact was like the western version of that, but a few years too late. Artifact News however had some incredible personalization that began to truly understand your preferences over time. Definitely one of the weirdest acquisitions of an AI startup I’ve ever seen.