Blog

There’s a new social media app in town—and it’s coming to you from Instagram’s original co-founders.

Meet Artifact, an offering taking aim at the next generation of social media adoption by positioning itself as the “TikTok of text.”

With a name that comes from combining of “articles, facts, and artificial intelligence,” the Artifact platform will focus more on news and content as opposed to social features, at least in the early stages. And it’s main value proposition will be using AI technology to get you the news you truly care about.

According to an exclusive announcement via the Platformer newsletter, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger—who originally founded Instagram, continued leading it after Facebook’s (now Meta’s) historic $1 billion purchase, and then left the company in 2018 following tensions with Facebook—are teaming up again for “a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps.” Artifact is their first release.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The app is currently only available on iOS and Android. You can download the app now from their website and join now. (It appears that you no longer need to join a waitlist.)

• AI is core to the offering. The app’s personalized feed uses machine learning to learn your interests and promises to give you similar posts and stories in the future. For example: After reading an article, when you return to the feed you’ll see similar suggested stories in a carousel.

  • The founders believe that recent technological advances and “a decade-plus of lessons learned” will help the app’s recommendation algorithms stand out among the crowded news and social media app marketplace.

• Social is not currently the core offering, but there are social features. For example, users will be able to discuss articles with friends through direct messages.

• There is no public business model—yet. Advertising and revenue-sharing deals with publishers could be options.

• They are being careful about what news is added to the platform. There is “an effort to include only publishers who adhere to editorial standards of quality.”

“TikTok’s innovation was to show you stuff using only algorithmic predictions, regardless of who your friends are or who you followed. It soon became the most downloaded app in the world.

Artifact represents an effort to do the same thing, but for text.”

— Platformer

Why it Matters

Any new social media app is worthy of attention—after all, you never know when the next TikTok will emerge—but it especially deserves attention when the app comes from the founders of one of the most successful social media platforms of all time.

Given the recent chaos in the social media landscape and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence capabilities, this could be a perfect time for the re-emergence of Instagram’s founders. Is Artificat poised to take the world by storm? There are plenty of hurdles to mass adoption, but there are a lot of things working in the app’s favor.

Time will tell, and it may be some time before brands have an opportunity to participate. But in the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on Artificat to see how people use it and what new features could emerge.