Artifact, the personalized news aggregator developed by Instagram’s co-founders, introduces an exciting new feature today that expands its capabilities beyond simply tracking, summarizing, and commenting on the news. Users can now share any link from the web to create a customized feed of content tailored to their interests—ushering Artifact into direct competition with social platforms like X and Threads for sharing text and links.
This new feature, aptly named Links, highlights the capabilities of Artifact’s AI technology, showcasing its potential in new ways.
To get started, users simply need to share a URL, which will be displayed in a visually engaging feed within a dedicated Links tab in the app. Here, a “For You” feed will curate additional links based on individual interests.
In addition to sharing links, Artifact users have the option to craft captions or add photos to express their thoughts or “hot takes,” transforming them into creators who can cultivate a following within the app. Artifact aims to boost user engagement by sharing posted links with other relevant users, enhancing opportunities for audience building.
The Links feature also includes creative tools that allow users to quickly upload, crop, and reorder their images. Additionally, creators can utilize Artifact’s AI—initially designed for summarizing lengthy news articles—to assist with writing captions. Users can even highlight text from articles and select “Share to Links” from a new pop-up menu to share quotes.
Early adopters of the Links feature have already shared a diverse range of content, from new product launches and videos to recipe ideas and architecture slideshows. This positions Artifact not only as a rival to social platforms like X but also as a competitor to content curation sites like Flipboard and Pinterest.
While Artifact has gradually ventured into social networking territory with recent enhancements that enabled commenting on articles and allowed writers to claim their profiles and monitor readership, the new Links feature represents a significant shift. Users can now search for and follow anyone with a social profile on the app, and new posts from those they follow will be conveniently displayed under a dedicated “Following” section. These profiles have also been redesigned to showcase recent links shared by users.
With the introduction of Links, Artifact becomes a more interactive platform for news discovery, inviting users to actively engage in sharing content. However, this shift may also lead to users posting materials from smaller sites, blogs, and potentially unreliable news sources that may lack the thorough fact-checking characteristic of mainstream media.
To address this concern, Artifact plans to implement a dual-layer approach to content moderation. First, the app will employ AI technology and various third-party moderation services to identify inappropriate content as outlined in its community guidelines. The second layer will involve manual review, which will be crowdsourced and continuously monitored by Artifact’s team.
Kevin Systrom, Artifact co-founder and former Instagram leader, highlights the broader mission of the platform: “The same AI that powers article discovery can be applied to anything on the web—while it’s challenging to crawl everything, it’s more effective to let users curate the best content,” he states. “Artifact is focused on fueling your curiosity, extending beyond the top publishers. The most valuable insights can sometimes be found in lesser-known blogs that deserve to shine on a platform like this."
The Links feature is now available on both iOS and Android, with posting functionality coming soon to Android as well.
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