Why Instagram's Founders Are Calling It Quits On Their Artifact AI News App

Artifact, the AI powered news app, is shutting down. Instagram’s former founders made the app in an effort to deliver news to users based on recommendations made by the app. In a statement posted to Medium, the company says “We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.”

The app officially launched in January of last year, so it’s a bit surprising to see it get pulled after such a short time on the market. However, the company seems to have come to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t going to work out. The company added that “It’s easy for startups to ignore this reality, but often making the tough call earlier is better for everyone involved.”

The shutdown is made even more strange by the seeming success the app was seeing in the Google app store. The company points to the pride the team felt when the app was listed in the “essential every day app of the year by the Google Play Store.”


Fortunately, the app will be shutting down in a graceful way as the company doesn’t plan on immediately pulling the plug. However, the app will be running in a very limited mode to reduce the cost of operations, with users no longer able to add new comments or posts. The core news reading functionality will continue to work until the end of February.

Having an app deliver personalized news was an interesting application of AI, but it seems as if the userbase just wasn’t there. However, this won’t be the last we hear from Instagram’s former founders as they stated their intent to work on new projects.