Yahoo has purchased Artifact, the AI-based news aggregation platform made by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the company revealed on Tuesday. The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Krieger and Systrom will work with Yahoo in an advisory role during the transition, but they will not be permanent employees of the company. Yahoo is interested in Artifact’s technology, not its staff.
According to a press release, the platform will no longer be available as a separate product, but the AI-powered personalization technology and other features will be incorporated into Yahoo, including the Yahoo News app, in the near future, indicating a move towards integrating AI throughout the company’s products.
The acquisition comes shortly after Krieger and Systrom announced that they would be shutting down the platform, stating, “We have created something that a core group of users love, but we have decided that the market opportunity isn’t significant enough to justify continued investment in this manner.”
“Yahoo was among the earliest to combine human and algorithmic curation of news. Since then, the landscape of machine learning and personalization has changed significantly and Artifact has innovated with top-notch technology to meet the current needs,” SVP and general manager of Yahoo News Kat Downs Mulder expressed in a statement. “Artifact has become a beloved product and we’re thrilled to be able to further develop that technology and advance our mission of becoming the trusted guide to digital information and the best curator connecting people to the content that matters most to them.”
“AI has enabled us to offer users a better experience in discovering great content they care about. Yahoo recognizes that opportunity, and we are extremely excited to see our creation live on through Yahoo News,” Systrom stated in a release. “Yahoo brings the scale to help the product achieve what we envisioned while maintaining the belief that connecting people to the trusted sources of news and information is as crucial as ever.”
The acquisition was completed on March 29.
