Artifact, the personalized news aggregator from the founders of Instagram, is further embracing AI with the launch of a new feature that now summarizes news articles for you. The company announced today that it is introducing a tool that generates article summaries with the tap of a button, to give readers the ability to understand the “main points” of an article before reading. For a little extra fun, the feature can also be used to summarize news in a style, such as “explain like I’m five”, in Gen Z speech style, or using only emojis, for example.
These styles aren’t really meant to be useful, they’re just there to add a bit of whimsy to the feature and possibly encourage users to try the new feature.
To use the AI summaries feature, tap the “Aa” button in the menu above an individual news article, then tap the new “Summary” option. The company confirmed that it uses OpenAI’s technologies through its API to generate text summaries.
However, the company warns users that the feature should not replace actually reading the news, as AI is not perfect.
Image Credits: artifact
“It’s important to note that summaries do not replace the usefulness of having the full text of the article,” the company’s blog post reads. “AI is powerful, but can make mistakes from time to time, so it’s important to check that the abstract matches the article as you read the full text,” it warns.
The company said over time it may add other fun styles for users to play with, in addition to those available at launch.
The feature is only now rolling out to Artifact users, so you may not see the Summarize option in your app right away, but you should soon.
Founded by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Artifact’s original premise was to provide a personalized experience around reading news, but not one that traps users in “filter bubbles” like on Facebook. While Artifact’s home screen offers a curated selection of news tailored to the end user, based on their reading preferences and engagement, the headlines section of the app shows users the same news item as covered by a variety of sources in the wider news ecosystem. Artifact pre-screens its news sources for adherence to certain standards of integrity, such as their fact-checking and correction process, their funding transparency, and more.
Since its public launch in February, Artifact has been quick to iterate on its feature set, rolling out a social discussions feature earlier this month that allows users to comment on news items and upvote and downvote others’ comments.
The company isn’t yet sharing how many people are actively using its news app right now, but app information agency data.ai reports that the app has seen 240,000 worldwide across both app stores so far. In the US App Store, the app is currently number 115 in the News section.