Key Takeaways:
Internet search giant Yahoo has announced the acquisition of Artifact, an artificial intelligence-powered new aggregation and discovery platform created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Meta-owned photo and video-sharing platform Instagram.
The move is considered a strategic shift by Yahoo to leverage the power of AI to personalize the news experience for its users.
Yahoo Acquires AI News Aggregation and Discovery Platform Artifact
Artifact, launched as an AI news app last year, aims to revolutionize news consumption with a personalized news feed. Unlike traditional new aggregator platforms, Artifact uses AI to understand user preferences and curate articles based on their interests to offer a more relevant and engaging news experience for every consumer.
The platform’s bespoke AI news discovery engine learns users’ interests over time to curate content that they want to see. Artifact also offers a host of features aimed at improving the quality of the users’ experience, from easy access to top news stories of the day to preventing clickbait proliferation.
In a press release, Yahoo, which also owns news platforms TechCrunch, Engadget, and Yahoo Finance, and a minority stake in content recommendation platform Taboola, said that Artifact’s AI-powered news recommendation engine and other features will help scale its news operations and help deliver personalized content to the audience.
In 2021, American asset management firm Apollo Global Management acquired Yahoo for a reported sum of $5 billion.
Artifact will Cease to Exist as a Standalone App
As per the agreement, Artifact will no longer operate as a standalone news aggregator, instead, it will integrate its news personalization technology and other AI-related services across the various platforms owned by Yahoo, including the Yahoo News app.
Artifact’s founders, Systrom and Krieger, were at Meta (formerly Facebook) after the Silicon Valley giant acquired their previous company Instagram in 2018. The duo left Meta in 2018 due to a strained relationship with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as their vision for Instagram was not in alignment.
Yahoo closed its acquisition of Artifact on March 29, 2024. The company’s CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger will work with Yahoo in an advisory role during the transition.
Back in January, Artifact announced that it would be halting its app, citing insufficient market opportunity to justify further investment in that direction.
Kat Downs, the senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo News, highlighted that the internet giant was one of the first to combine human and algorithmic curation of news stories. He called Artifact a “beloved product” that has changed the landscape of machine learning for news personalization.
Downs noted that Yahoo first began exploring the Artifact acquisition after reading the shutdown letter by the startup’s co-founders.
While speaking to the media, Artifact co-founder Kevin Systrom said the company is proud of building a product experience that is “intuitive” and beneficial to millions of people. He added that Yahoo’s investment would help the platform achieve what the founders had envisioned.
Yahoo is Acquiring Artifact’s Tech and not its Team
Neither Yahoo nor Artifact have declined to share the cost of the deal but made it clear that the internet giant is acquiring the startup’s tech rather than its team. Most of Artifact’s current employees have either moved away from the company or are planning to take some time off from work.
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