Yahoo today launches a renewed version of its news application. This new app Yahoo News, which can now be downloaded for free, takes advantage of the code base of the Artifact application, which was well received but short-lived. And of course the new app It is equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to show you the articles that interest you most.
Artifact was a news reading app that launched in 2023 and was led by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It made extensive use of AI, using algorithms to process user behavior and offer readers highly personalized content based on the information they interacted with. A little over a year after its launch, the Artifact team closed the service after seeing that it was not growing enough.
Although the app failed, his resurrection was quick. In April, Yahoo announced that it had purchased Artifact with the goal of offering its users “more content tailored to their interests.” A little more than two months later, that plan materializes in the renewed Yahoo News application.
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Yahoo News is gigantic. It is the largest news platform in the United States, with more than 185 million monthly visitors. Now, Yahoo hopes to use the artificial intelligence engine behind Artifact to revitalize its app by honing its personalization capabilities, a move that would help it jump into the AI battle.
The new Yahoo News app is free (although with advertising), is available for iOS and Android in the United States, and can be enjoyed with or without a Yahoo account. This push for AI in app News comes a few days after Yahoo introduced updates to this technology on its app Mail. Yahoo is also incorporating generative AI summaries of news articles. In the new app, users will see a prompt on some content to generate “key points” about it. After clicking on it, a quick summary will appear that loads after a second or two. AI summaries are also displayed on the desktop version of Yahoo News, but only to a small subset of users who have been selected and decide to participate.
Recommendation features enabled by algorithms powered by Artifact in the app Yahoo News are mobile only for now. They aren’t in the desktop version yet, but Yahoo says the goal is to sync them over time across all platforms.
Kat Downs Mulder, Vice President senior and CEO of Yahoo News, says the update is a “complete top-to-bottom redesign of our app.” Even at first glance, the difference is immediately noticeable. It has a sleek, clean look and is easy to navigate. And behind the scenes, there are a series of AI algorithms pulling the strings to show you what you want to see. Some of these features are powered by proprietary technology, and others by AI bigwigs Yahoo has partnered with, like OpenAI.
