Instagram co-founders launch AI-Powered news app ‘Artifact’

The co-founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have formed a new venture to explore the possibilities of next-generation social apps, reports The Verge. They left Facebook in 2018 due to tensions with the parent company.

Their latest creation, Artifact, is a text-based social app that provides users with a feed of selected news stories from reputable sources like The New York Times. The app adapts to users’ reading preferences by presenting similar stories based on the articles they click on.

Artifact also includes a feature that displays news articles shared by people you follow, along with their comments. This allows users to discuss current events with friends through private messages. The app is being referred to as a text-based version of TikTok or a mobile variation of Google Reader and presents as an alternative to Twitter.

The app aggregates popular articles from well-known news organizations and niche blogs and continually adjusts its algorithm to show similar content based on users’ interests. Systrom and Krieger are financing the project using their personal funds and describe Artifact as their initial effort to envision the future of social apps.

The app is not currently accessible to the general public, but there is a waitlist available for those who are interested in using it. By signing up for the waitlist, interested users can express their desire to use the app when it becomes available to them. This waitlist system allows the app developers to gauge demand for the app.