Yahoo has revealed that it has acquired Artifact, an AI-powered news aggregation and discovery platform. Artifact, which was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, co-founders of Instagram, uses technology to provide highly customized news experiences. The exclusive AI-powered personalization technology and other features of Artifact will soon be integrated throughout Yahoo, including the Yahoo News App. Artifact will no longer be available as a stand-alone app. Given the size of the Yahoo News Network, which is projected to be the top news and information property in the US by 2023, the technology Artifact has developed will have an even greater influence.
Following the announcement by Artifact CEO Kevin Systrom in January 2024 that the app would be shut down, this acquisition has taken place. With the potential for improved scalability and audience-specific content delivery, Yahoo, the parent company of well-known news sites like TechCrunch, Engadget, and Yahoo Finance, sees Artifact’s AI-powered recommendation engine as a valuable addition to its news operations.
When Artifact was introduced a year earlier, it was praised for its creativity and design, but it had trouble breaking through the market. Additionally, this acquisition illustrates the continued difficulties media startups face in making money, especially considering the dominance of advertising sales by tech behemoths like Meta Platforms and Alphabet. Furthermore, Yahoo owns a small portion of the Taboola content recommendation platform. Yahoo did not release the acquisition’s financial details. In 2021, Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, paid $5 billion to acquire Yahoo.
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Artifact’s goal was to deliver the most relevant stories to users via AI, using proprietary technology to provide curated news and content experiences. Yahoo serves as a reliable resource for consumers looking to accomplish online objectives, such as finding and connecting with high-quality content that interests them. This investment accelerates Yahoo’s vision to provide a more personalized news and information discovery experience across platforms and strengthens Yahoo’s commitment to providing reliable news and information to hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
With time, Artifact’s AI-powered discovery engine learns what interests users and presents the content they want to see most. The outcome is a highly successful personalized news feed that assists users in finding stories they are interested in reading. Apart from curation, Artifact offers an array of functionalities designed to enhance the user experience, such as effortless access to the most recent news, the ability to share links, instruments to stop the spread of clickbait, and more. By adding these features to the Yahoo portfolio, the chance to provide users with even more personalized and richer content experiences is accelerated. Yahoo’s large user base should enjoy a more dynamic and personalized news experience as a result of this integration. The purchase was finalized on March 29, 2024. Over the transition, Systrom and Kreiger will continue to serve as advisors to Yahoo.
Kat Downs Mulder, SVP and General Manager of Yahoo News said
“Yahoo was one of the first to combine human and algorithmic curation of news. Since then, the landscape of machine learning and personalization has changed dramatically and Artifact has innovated with best-in-class technology to meet the moment. Artifact has become a beloved product and we’re thrilled to be able to continue to grow that technology and further our mission of becoming the trusted guide to digital information and the best curator connecting people to the content that matters most to them.”
Kevin Systrom, CEO and Co-Founder of Artifact stated,
“We built an intuitive product experience that users love and has the opportunity to benefit millions of people. Yahoo brings the scale to help the product achieve what we envisioned while upholding the belief that connecting people to the trusted sources of news and information is as critical as ever. AI has allowed us to give users a better experience discovering great content they care about. Yahoo recognizes that opportunity, and we could not be more excited to see what we’ve built live on through Yahoo News.”
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