Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have reteamed to launch Artifact, an AI driven personalized news feed that also lets you and your friends discuss about each story you share.

Casey Newton, who broke the news, calls it TikTok for text. From his description it sounds like AI driven Flipboard with chat.

As you can see from the screenshot registration is limited to US phone numbers for the time being. They’re clearly in testing mode and managing traffic. The whitelist, iPhone exclusive period, and pretty interface create a FOMO mindset among those who can’t get in yet.

It’s the stereotypical Silicon Valley product launch. Create a pretty app and generate widespread hype and FOMO by limiting access and riding on the news wave and public chatter.

From John Gruber’s take it’s not a promising start, maybe it’s far too early to judge. Right now it’s closer to a newsreader than a social app of any kind, and maybe that is the whole point and the conversation aspect is just a minor feature.