Artifact (app)
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Social media, News aggregator |
| Founded | March 3, 2022 (Nokto, Inc.) |
| Founder | Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger |
| Defunct | January 2024 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco , United States |
Key people | Kevin Systrom (CEO), Mike Krieger (CTO) |
| Products | Artifact (social news aggregator app) |
Number of employees | 7 (2023) |
Artifact was a customized social news aggregator application that utilized recommender systems to propose articles tailored to users' interests. Introduced in January 2023 by Nokto, Inc., a company established by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom (serving as CEO) and Mike Krieger (acting as CTO), the app was designed for both iOS and Android platforms. The name "Artifact" is derived from a blend of "articles," "artificial intelligence," and "fact." Due to insufficient consumer demand, the application was discontinued in January 2024.
History
Nokto, Inc. was officially registered in California on March 3, 2022, with its main office located in San Francisco. Artifact represented the inaugural product launched by Systrom and Krieger since their departure from Instagram in 2018 amid disagreements with their former parent company, Meta Platforms.
Following more than a year dedicated to development, Artifact became available on January 31, 2023. It initially operated as a private beta featuring a waiting list of approximately 160,000 prospective users before opening access to the general public in late February 2023. The startup maintained a compact workforce of seven personnel based in San Francisco. Throughout its existence, the app was provided free of charge, though its creators mentioned plans for potential revenue generation through advertising or subscription models.
In January 2024, Kevin Systrom declared the termination of Artifact’s services, attributing the decision to a lack of sufficient market viability to support continued investment.
Subsequently, in April 2024, Yahoo acquired Artifact with the intention of incorporating its AI-powered technology into an enhanced version of the Yahoo! News application.
Features
Often likened to "TikTok for text" and positioned as a rival to Twitter, Artifact functioned as a news aggregator that applied machine learning algorithms to offer personalized content recommendations based on user preferences for topics, news outlets, and favored authors. In addition to reading articles, users could engage by liking content, commenting, and accessing AI-generated audio narrations featuring simulated voices such as those resembling Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow. The platform’s AI also rephrased identified clickbait headlines to enhance the overall quality of information. Over time, Artifact developed into a social networking environment where individuals could share links, images, and text posts on personal profiles subject to likes and comments from others. Similar to communities like Reddit, user accounts featured profiles with reputation scoring systems.