Instagram’s top boss is missing the point about AI on the platform

A few weeks ago, Adam Mosseri posted on his grid. In a series of posts, Instagram’s top executive outlined his concerns about the platform for the coming year, largely around AI. The message was both a work through, a wake-up call, and a rallying cry to creators using the platform: AI is about to be everywhere on Instagram, and the best way to stand out from “inauthentic” content is to be an authentic, original voice.

“Everything that makes creators important – the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that can’t be faked – is now available to anyone with the right tools,” he says. People want seriousness realitynot a brilliant knockoff easily fooled by AI. Which may be true, but I think Mosseri misunderstood: Instagram is Already overrun with identical-looking robotic content, and it’s not just created by AI. It is created by humans who produce publication after publication following the same formula; one designed to keep us scrolling, liking and sharing.

Throughout his post, Mosseri makes a few points that I agree with. He mentions that as AI-generated images become more sophisticated and easier to produce, it will be easier to label what is real than putting a watermark on every AI-created image. This is why Google’s Pixel 10 phones put content IDs on each photo taken with one of its cameras, not just those made with AI. Mosseri also mentions that the AI ​​will get better at mimicking the appearance of the low-fidelity phone camera that signals authenticity – although I’d say that’s already happening now, not in the near future. There is a real threat to Instagram’s business model, even if we disagree on the timeline.

But I have a major problem with his argument. Time and again, Mosseri mentions “authentic” content, which implies something human-made as opposed to inauthentic content created by AI. He calls this a “major change: authenticity becomes infinitely reproducible.” Certainly, there are many fantastic creators posting great work on Instagram. But much of the human-created content on Instagram is also inauthentic — and that’s a feature of algorithmic social media, not a bug.

Creators learn what the algorithm rewards, and then they do more things along those lines. Ultimately, a lot of people post things that are very similar. How else do you end up with two influencers whose vibes are so similar that no one could tell if it happened by coincidence or if one of them was copying the other? The algorithm rewards everything that keeps us glued to the platform, not the most stimulating or original elements. The algorithm created We robots. And this inauthentic and predictable human-made content will be the first thing that AI replaces. This is essentially what AI does: make predictions based on its training data. Mosseri is right to be concerned.

I recently opened Instagram to a video of a mother repeatedly counting her children as she watched them in a public place. “One, two, three,” she nods as she explains them, then starts again. “Who else does this too? It’s not exhausting at all,” the caption read. No, but that’s because I only have one to follow. But I remembered the video, because I watched it when she posted it in 2024. The repost strategy is a direct reading of the algorithm: launch the same network again to attract new subscribers, or perhaps see if this particular video lands better in a different era and context. I see the same thing on Threads, where a comedian I follow will try the exact same joke weeks or months after they first posted it to try to catch a different algorithmic wave. Even people posting “authentic” content must act like robots to win the algorithmic feed.

I don’t think any of this is a revelation to Mosseri, though. His post suggests he understands this reality: “Flattering images are cheap to produce and boring to consume,” he says. Which, of course. But if Instagram’s first job is to show you new content when you open the app and keep you scrolling while you’re there, quantity will always trump quality. You know what’s expensive and time-consuming to produce? Content that “feels real,” the least sustainable content to produce when every influencer is under pressure to become a full-time small business owner. Unless Instagram can invent a cool new way to encourage real creators, I think Mosseri can count on seeing more inauthentic content, whether it’s created by a human or not.