Tech Industry’s Major Transformation: Yahoo Acquires AI News Platform Artifact
The world tech industry has witnessed some major transformations in the first 3 months of 2024. One such major event has been the acquisition of the AI-driven news platform, Artifact by Yahoo. On Tuesday, April 2, Yahoo announced the same. The American web service provider also stated that it would include Artifact’s technology across its news and other sites. This deal is symbolic of the struggles faced by media startups to thrive in the industry and generate revenue in an era, where the major portion of advertising revenue is grabbed by big leading Tech giants such as Google and Meta.
Artifact had earlier mentioned through one of its blog posts in January that it would wind down its operations due to the limited market opportunities available for the app. Meanwhile, Yahoo has viewed this acquisition as a valuable opportunity to strengthen opportunities across its different verticals and serve as a customized content provider to the audience. The companies haven’t yet shared the financial details about the acquisition. Yahoo has stated that it would only acquire the tech of Artifact and not its team; and that the co-founders of Artifact who also co-founded Instagram would be working as “special advisors” for Yahoo but won’t be a part of the company, during the acquisition transition. Artifact also holds some minority stake in Taboola, which is a content management platform.
Artifact was started by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in the initial months of 2023. The duo is the same which also founded together Instagram back in 2010. But the latter was taken by Meta(previously known as Facebook) which is headed by Mark Zuckerberg, in 2012. The duo reportedly left Facebook in 2018, the reason being some feuds between the Meta head and Instagram founders. There also emerged visionary differences between the two parties for Instagram.
