Yahoo acquires Instagram co-founders’ AI news platform Artifact

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The deal signals continued pain for media start-ups struggling to grow revenue at a time when Big Tech giants Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) attract the bulk of advertising sales.

In January, Artifact said in a blogpost it would wind down operations of its app as “the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.”

Yahoo, which also owns news brands TechCrunch, Engadget and Yahoo Finance, said Artifact’s AI-powered recommendation engine and other features will help scale its news operations and deliver personalized content to audience.

The online publisher also owns a minority stake in content recommendation platform Taboola.

Yahoo, which declined to share financial details, was bought out by private equity firm Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO) for $5 billion in 2021.

Artifact was launched in early 2023 by Systrom and Mike Krieger. They were earlier at Meta, then known as Facebook, after the company’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012.

The duo had left the Facebook owner in late 2018, which some media reports later described as due to their strained relationship with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and differences in their visions for Instagram.

Systrom and Krieger will work with Yahoo in an advisory capacity during this transition, Yahoo said in a statement.