Yahoo said Tuesday it has acquired AI-powered news platform Artifact from Instagram co-founders and will integrate its technology into the U.S. web services company’s news and other sites.
The deal is a sign of continued pain for media startups struggling to grow revenues at a time when tech giants Alphabet and Meta Platforms are capturing the bulk of ad sales.
In January, Artifact said in a blog post that it would suspend operations of its app because “the market opportunity is not large enough to justify further investment in this way.”
Yahoo, which also owns news brands TechCrunch, Engadget and Yahoo Finance, said Artifact’s AI recommendation engine and other features will help scale its news business and deliver personalized content to audiences.
The online publisher also has a minority stake in the recommendation platform Taboola.
Yahoo, which declined to disclose financial details, was bought out by private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion in 2021.
Artifact was launched in early 2023 by Systrom and Mike Krieger. They previously worked at Meta, then known as Facebook, following 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 role during this transition, Yahoo said in a statement. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh and Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Tags: Yahoo acquires news platform Artifact Instagram cofounders April
