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Instagram Will Have to Evolve Fast, Warns Adam Mosseri Amid Rise of AI Content

Instagram Will Have to Evolve Fast, Warns Adam Mosseri Amid Rise of AI Content

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said that over time, the platform will get worse at identifying AI content.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Rohan Pal | Updated: 2 January 2026 18:35 IST

Instagram Will Have to Evolve Fast, Warns Adam Mosseri Amid Rise of AI Content

Photo Credit: Pixabay/Solen Feyissa

“Authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible,” warned Adam Mosseri

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Highlights

Mosseri said users have stopped sharing personal moments on Instagram
Instagram users now primarily share via DMs, he said
Mosseri said authenticity will soon be the biggest marker of a creator

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri believes that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images and videos is forcing the platform to evolve quickly. The Meta-owned social media platform gained popularity for its image and video-centric feed, and is a major driver of the creator economy, which is run by influencers and content creators. However, the executive thinks that AI-generated content is improving so fast that soon it might become impossible to distinguish it from camera-captured content. Mosseri also emphasised that the value of authenticity is going to increase in the coming days.

Adam Mosseri Shares a Pessimistic Outlook Towards AI-Generated Content

AI-powered image and video generation dominated the space in 2025, with Google's Nano Banana and OpenAI's Sora app creating new waves of viral trends and exponential user adoption. Instagram also tapped into the growing AI-led content creation demand with its Edits app. However, in a recent post, Mosseri believes AI-generated content could emerge as a key risk for the social media platform.

“The key risk Instagram faces is that, as the world changes more quickly, the platform fails to keep up,” Mosseri wrote in a 20-slide-long carousel post on December 31. “Looking forward to 2026, one major shift: authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible,” he added.

Year Ender 2025: Instagram Features Launched This Year

Mosseri, who joined Meta's Instagram division as the Vice President of Product in May 2018 and became the Head of the platform in October of the same year, has seen several major technological shifts and trends that impacted how users interact with the social media app. However, he hinted that the AI-generated images and videos might be the most transformative of them all.

“For most of my life, I could safely assume photographs or videos were largely accurate captures of moments that happened. This is clearly no longer the case, and it's going to take us years to adapt. We are going to move from assuming what we see is real by default to starting with scepticism,” the Instagram head said.

He also highlighted that while Instagram might do a good job at identifying AI content in the short run, over time, it will become increasingly difficult to do so. He believes that soon, camera manufacturers will cryptographically sign images at capture, so as to fingerprint real media instead of synthetic content.

Instagram Could Embrace Long-Form Video Content to Compete With TikTok

Mosseri also highlighted that the old perception of Instagram, that users post polished images of their personal moments on their feed, is dead. He revealed that most of these moments are now only shared in Direct Messages (DMs) and are marked by blurry photos, shaky videos, and unflattering candids.

Calling it “raw aesthetic,” the executive claimed that flattering imagery is no longer valuable as it is “cheap to produce and boring to consume.” He said that this will make authentic content creation more valuable as the bar shifts from “can you create?” to “can you make something that only you could create?”

Instagram Will Now Restrict the Number of Hashtags You Can Use

Mosseri also believes that, as a platform, Instagram will have to evolve in a number of ways, and quickly, if it wants to stay ahead of the ongoing AI content rise. “We need to build the best reactive tools. Label AI-generated content and verify authentic content. Surface credibility signals about who's posting. Continue to improve ranking for originality,” he added.

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Further reading: Instagram, Adam Mosseri, AI, AI Images, Artificial Intelligence

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Chief Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More