Discover the new Links feature from Artifact, the personalized news app that's revolutionizing the web!

Artifact launches a new personalized link sharing feature

Artifact, the personalized news aggregator created by Instagram's co-founders, today launches a new feature that takes the app in a different direction outside of news following, summarizing and commenting. From now on, users will be able to share any link from the web to display a personalized feed of links based on their interests - something that puts the app in direct competition with text- or link-sharing social apps like X or Threads.

Links" feature highlights the possibilities offered by Artifact's AI technology

The feature, simply called "Links", aims to showcase what's possible with Artifact's AI technology, the company explains.

To get started, all you have to do is share a URL, which is then presented in a visual feed in a new "Links" tab in the app. Here, a feed colloquially called "For You" will show you other links based on your interests.

Artifact turns users into content creators

In addition to sharing a link, Artifact users can also optionally write a caption or add photos to share their thoughts or "hot takes", or select the most interesting photos to include in their publication. This has the effect of turning users into creators of a kind who could build up an audience on Artifact. The company claims that the app will start showing published links to other relevant people to help the creator build an audience.

In addition, the new "Links" feature will offer creative tools to help users quickly upload, crop and reorganize their images. And, to make caption writing easier, creators will be able to call on Artifact's AI, which was originally used to summarize long news stories.

Creators can also share quotes when reading articles on Artifact by highlighting the text and choosing "Share to Links" from the new context menu.

Artifact becomes a content-sharing platform

The company claims that early adopters have shared new products, videos, headline recaps, app reviews, recipes, architecture slideshows and much more via Links. This makes the app feel like a competitor not only to social apps like X, but also to Flipboard, whose social magazines are curated by its users, or even link-pinning sites like Pinterest.

While Artifact has moved closer to social networking territory with recent launches that have added comments on articles and tools for authors to claim their profiles and track their readership, the new "Links" feature goes even further.

From now on, users can search for and follow anyone who has created a social profile on the app. Here, new posts by people you follow will appear in a new "Followed" section. These profiles have been redesigned to also show recently published links.

Artifact encourages the active participation of users in the discovery of new products.

With Links, using Artifact becomes less of a passive news-reading experience and more of one in which users can actively participate in news discovery. But it could also mean that some users might try to feed the app content from smaller sites, blogs and other less legitimate news sources where information is not as rigorously verified as in the mainstream publications that Artifact originally supported.

The company says it will tackle this potential problem with a two-stage approach. First, it will leverage AI that uses several third-party moderation services to detect undesirable content, as defined in its community guidelines. The second stage is a manual review, both participatory and actively monitored by the team, we're told.

"The same AI that powers article discovery can be used for anything on the web - although it's less easy to browse everything, and probably better to let users choose the best content," explains Artifact co-founder Kevin Systrom, who created the app alongside Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger." Artifact is about feeding your curiosity, and that goes beyond the world's best publishers. Sometimes the best content is on a small blog that deserves to be discovered on a platform like this," he adds.

The Links feature is available on iOS and Android, and the publication is coming soon to Android.