Instagram Feed Recommendations AI system

UPDATED SEP 4, 2025

The content you see on your Instagram Feed Recommendations is selected, ranked and delivered to you by an artificial intelligence (AI) system. Within one AI system, multiple machine learning models work together to deliver your experience. These models and their input signals are dynamic and they change frequently as the system learns and improves over time.

Overview of Instagram Feed Recommendations

When you view and interact with Instagram, one of the underlying AI systems delivers suggested content to your feed. This is content you may be interested in from accounts, posts or Reels.

Note: What you see while scrolling your feed might also include connected content and advertisements. That content is not powered by the AI we describe in this system card. Connected content is described in Instagram Feed.

How Instagram Feed Recommendations works

The AI system behind Instagram Feed Recommendations automatically determines which content shows up in your feed, and in what order, by predicting what you’re most likely to be interested in or engage with. These predictions are based on a variety of factors, including what and whom you’ve followed, liked or engaged with recently. Here’s how it works:

Gather inventory
The system gathers a portion of the public content available on Instagram, which may include photos and videos that follow our quality and integrity rules.
Leverage signals
Next, the AI system considers a variety of input signals about the content. These signals might include how you’ve engaged with similar content or your interests.
Rank content
Finally, the system ranks content from the previous step. Content that the system predicts will provide more value for you is shown higher in your feed. This helps the system make content recommendations that more closely match your preferences.

How to customize what you see

Your experience on Instagram Feed Recommendations is personalized based on your activity, and you have options to control or customize what you see. Below, we describe how to do this with different in-product features. Options shown here may not be available to everyone.

Not interested

If you don’t want to see a specific post, you can select “Not Interested” in the three-dot overflow menu. The system will no longer show you posts from that author and will attempt to demote similar content in the future.

Manage suggested content

The manage suggested content option shows you the content you indicated you were either interested in or not. It also allows you to access sensitive content controls to customize the recommendations you’ll see, snooze feed recommendations, and hide recommendations containing certain words, phrases or emojis.

Report content

If you see something you think goes against our Community Guidelines, you can report it to us. You can also report posts that you think are spam or false information.

Hide

You can hide a post so you’ll never see that post again. This action also helps to limit similar content from showing up in your feed.

See non-personalized content from people you follow

To see posts and reels that aren't chosen or ordered in a way that's personalized specifically to you, click "Following" on the home screen. On tablets, You will see a “Latest” subfeed option. Tapping on “Latest” will display content from accounts you follow in reverse chronological order, and will not include recommendations.

Save

You can use the save option to add recommended content to a saved collection. This can help the system show you similar content in the future.

How the AI delivers content to you

We want you to see content you enjoy and find interesting. To achieve this, the AI system has models that help it make predictions about content you'll find most relevant and valuable. These prediction models use underlying input signals to help select content you're most likely to engage with.

Below are some of the significant predictions-and input signals that inform them-that we use in this AI system.

How likely you are to use the audio from a reel you're viewing in one you create