Discover Recommended Places with Artifact: The New App from Instagram Co-Founders

Artifact, the Personalized News Aggregation App, Expands Its Features

Artifact, the innovative news aggregation app created by Instagram’s co-founders, is evolving beyond merely a source for the latest headlines. Following last month’s introduction of the ability to share organic posts and various links, Artifact has now incorporated a new feature that allows users to recommend their favorite places—such as restaurants, bars, shops, and other local hot spots—to friends.

This enhancement redefines the app's purpose, rapidly transforming it into a comprehensive discovery engine for a wide array of online content, potentially positioning it as a competitor to platforms like Twitter/X. By recommending places, Artifact users can also establish themselves as curators, building a following by sharing their insights and suggestions on not just news, but experiences as well.

The new place-sharing functionality is integrated into the posting experience on Artifact. Users can easily click the plus “+” icon to share their own curated content, including titles, text, and images. Initially, Artifact allowed users to share posts like restaurant reviews, how-to guides, family recipes, app breakdowns, and design inspiration. This expansion inches the app closer to the territory occupied by X, adding a layer of organic content alongside links. However, while X has predominantly focused on text-based content, Artifact has recently incorporated generative AI tools to enhance posts with engaging images, making them more eye-catching for users.

AI is a cornerstone of Artifact's functionality. It powers the app's recommendation engine and is utilized to rewrite clickbait headlines and summarize articles, providing users with quick overviews of what they can expect from a given piece. These AI-generated summaries are now accessible when users click on a headline to view the full article within the in-app Safari web browser. Users can also comment on and save articles for later reading, features available in both the native mobile app and through Safari’s share extension, as announced by co-founder Mike Krieger on Instagram Threads.

As of last month, Artifact boasted approximately 400,000 mobile app downloads, according to estimates from data.ai, a market intelligence provider. Since its public launch in February 2023, the app has rapidly rolled out new features—including user profiles, commenting, and link sharing—prompting speculation about its ambition to compete with X directly. Krieger mentioned that he envisions introducing “a flavor” of Twitter/X within Artifact to help users identify trending stories. However, he acknowledged that the app has yet to fully realize this goal.

By focusing on niche news and discussions, Artifact seems to be positioning itself more like Flipboard, with its curated news magazines, or Pinterest, as a platform for discovering inspirational content. Yet, without a singular focus, users may find themselves questioning the app's primary purpose: Is Artifact a news provider? A discovery tool? A recommendation app? A rival to X? Only time will reveal the direction Artifact will take, but for now, it serves as one of many platforms where users can explore news, links, and engaging content.

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