Artifact to wind down operations

Artifact's CEO Kevin Systrom this month announced the decision to wind down operations of the app. The Artifact app was launched a year ago and has been praised for its innovation and design, but Systrom said that the market opportunity is not big enough to warrant continued investment.

Systrom also acknowledged the hard work of the small team of 8 who developed the app and said that he was proud of what they had accomplished. He also expressed optimism about the future of news and information and said that he believes that technology can play a role in preserving and supporting these institutions.

The app will continue to operate through the end of February, but the ability to add new comments and posts has been removed. Existing posts will remain visible to users on their own profile self-views.

Artifact is a personalized social news aggregator app that uses recommender systems to suggest articles. It was launched in January 2023 by Nokto, Inc., a company founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram. The app was available for iOS and Android.

Key Takeaways

• Artifact is shutting down operations due to a lack of market opportunity.
• The app was praised for its innovation and design.
• The small team of 8 who developed the app should be commended for their hard work.
• Technology can play a role in preserving and supporting news and information institutions.