Yahoo Acquires AI News Platform Artifact (Image: Yahoo)
Yahoo made an important announcement on Tuesday that they had acquired Artifact, the Instagram co-founders” AI-driven news platform. With this major deal, Artifact will no longer operate as a standalone app. At the same time, Artifact’s underlying tech for categorising and personalising content will be soon integrated across Yahoo platforms, including the Yahoo News app
In January, the Artifact team announced that they would wind down operations of the Artifact app. On that occasion, the platform said that they took this crucial decision because they realized the market opportunity was not big enough to warrant continued investment. The AI-driven news aggregation platform was unveiled in January 2023 by Instagram cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The main highlight of the startup is that they used AI technology to deliver curated content and categories based on a reader”s news-reading habits.
According to a Reuters report, Yahoo also owns popular news brands, including TechCrunch, Engadget, and Yahoo Finance. Notably, Yahoo has not yet disclosed the financial terms of the deal. However, the company said in a press release that its acquisition of Artifact closed on March 29, 2024, and added that Artifact’s co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, will work with Yahoo in an “advisory capacity” during this transition.
“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, senior VP and general manager of Yahoo News, in a press release. Meanwhile, with this acquisition, Yahoo is expected to gain a huge new audience.
