Instagram Co-founders are shutting down Artifact news app

Instagram Co-founders begin shutting down Artifact from today, just a year after its release due to low popularity

Artifact, the news app created by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, is shutting down a year after launch. The app uses AI to suggest news that users might like to read. The app, however, seems to have failed to grab the attention of users on the app.

“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,” CEO Kevin Systrom says in a blog post. The app is beginning to close down from today. Users can no longer add new comments or posts, although will still let you read news “through the end of February.”

Since its launch in January last year, Artifact featured interesting tools including AI summaries, commenting on articles and marking articles as clickbait. The platform broadened to later include features to share cool stuff on the web and a Twitter-like post feature.

According to the the team of eight people working on Artifact “will go our separate ways.”