Yahoo announced Tuesday that it will acquire the Instagram co-founder's AI-powered news platform Artifact and incorporate its technology into the U.S. web service provider's news and other sites.
The deal signals continued pain for media startups struggling to grow revenue as Big Tech giants Alphabet and Meta Platforms pull in the lion's share of ad sales. There is.
In January, Artifact announced in a blog post that it would wind down its app operations, saying “the market opportunity is not large enough to justify this continued investment.”
Yahoo, which also owns the TechCrunch, Engadget and Yahoo Finance news brands, said Artifact's AI-powered recommendation engine and other features will help it expand its news operations and deliver personalized content to its viewers.
The online publisher also owns a minority stake in Taboola, a content recommendation platform.
Yahoo declined to disclose financial details, but was acquired by private equity firm Apollo Global Management in 2021 for $5 billion (approximately Rs. 41.73 billion).
Artifact was launched in early 2023 by Systrom and Mike Krieger. They were at Meta, then known as Facebook, after Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012.
The two left Facebook's owner at the end of 2018, with some media outlets later reporting that this was due to tensions with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and different visions for Instagram. .
Systrom and Krieger will work with Yahoo in an advisory capacity during this transition period, according to a statement from Yahoo.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
