Instagram Notifications AI system

UPDATED DEC 13, 2024
The content you see on your Instagram Notifications 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 Notifications

When you view and interact with Instagram, one of the underlying AI systems delivers notifications about new accounts to follow, activity from your connections, suggested content and more.
Note: You may also receive notifications about messages, comments, connection requests, account security or settings. Those notifications are not powered by the AI we describe in this system card.
How Instagram Notifications works
The AI system behind Instagram Notifications automatically determines which posts or activity you are notified about, and in what order, by predicting what you’re most likely to be interested in or engage with. Here’s how it works:
  1. Find the optimal time
    Most notifications will be sent in real-time, but for less time sensitive notifications the system will identify the best time to notify a user based on a variety of signals, ensuring optimal user engagement and response.
  2. Gather inventory
    Next, the system collects all eligible notifications it can possibly send to you. This includes content from accounts you follow and accounts you may not follow, but does not include notifications based on user activity, such as a user liking a story or beginning to follow a new account.
  3. Score notifications
    The system then scores each notification for a variety of factors, such as the type of notification, similarity to other content and how well the notification matches what you tend to interact with.
  4. Apply additional filters
    The system narrows the pool of eligible notifications to those that are the most relevant for you. Then, certain integrity processes are applied to all results. These determine which integrity measures, if any, need to be applied to the notifications selected for ranking.
  5. Rank results by score
    Finally, the system orders the notifications based on estimated engagement. Notifications that the system predicts will be most valuable or relevant for you are shown to you first.
How to customize what you see
Your experience on Instagram Notifications 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.
Turn notifications on or off about accounts you don’t follow
You can turn notifications on or off that alert you to accounts you don’t follow.
Turn notifications on or off about accounts you follow
You can turn notifications on or off that alert you to content from accounts you follow.
Unfollow
To stop seeing notifications from an account, you can unfollow it.
Turn notifications on or off
You can customize which notifications you receive. Learn more.
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 click on a notification
Signals influencing this prediction include:
  • How many times you've clicked on notifications and on this type of notification
  • How many times you've received this notification
  • How many notifications have been sent to you