Instagram Search AI system

UPDATED MAR 7, 2025
The content you see on your Instagram Search 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 Search

When you view and interact with Instagram, one of the underlying AI systems delivers results when you search for content.
How Instagram Search works
The AI system behind Instagram Search automatically orders search results by predicting what you'll find most valuable and relevant. Here’s how it works:
  1. Gather inventory
    First, the system collects all eligible search results to rank for you. This content could include hashtags, places, reels, posts, profiles, audio or other results that are relevant to the words you searched for.
  2. Score results
    Next, the system scores each search result for a variety of factors, such as the type of content and how well it matches what you tend to interact with.
  3. Apply additional filters
    The system narrows the pool of eligible content to the most relevant search results for you. Then, certain integrity processes are applied to all results. These determine which integrity measures, if any, need to be applied to the results selected for ranking.
  4. Rank results by score
    Finally, the system puts all the results in order by score. Results 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 Search 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.
Clear recent search history
You can clear all your recent searches or remove a search from your history. Clearing your search history is temporary, and searches you clear may reappear in your history after you search for them again.
Filter search results
You can use the filtering options in the search results page to sort and view results by category, such as accounts, audio, hashtags and places.
See non-personalized search results
You can view search results that aren't personalized specifically to you. 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 an account that appears after you start typing in the search bar, and take an additional action such as following the account or clicking to like a post
Signals influencing this prediction include:
  • How many times the account has been clicked and subsequently acted upon, compared to the number of times those actions have been taken on all accounts by people performing the same search in your country
  • Your Instagram social graph and account owner’s Instagram social graph
  • Your age, and the similarity between your age and the account owner’s age
  • How many times you’ve visited the account's profile
  • The similarity between the words used in your search and those in the account's username or profile name
How likely you are to click a suggested keyword that appears after you start typing in the search bar, and take an additional action such as saving a post or following an account
Signals influencing this prediction include:
  • How many times the suggested keyword has been clicked and subsequently acted upon, compared to the number of times those actions have been taken on all suggested keywords by people performing the same search in your country
  • How many times a search result has been clicked after clicking on the suggested keyword
  • The similarity between the words used in your search and those in the suggested keyword, including exact match
  • Which device platform you're using, such as the web, Android or iOS
  • How many times the suggested keyword has been clicked compared to the number of times all suggested keywords have been clicked by people performing the same search in your country
How likely you are to click a hashtag that appears after you start typing in the search bar, and take an additional action such as following an account or clicking to like a post
Signals influencing this prediction include:
  • The similarity between the words used in your search and those in the hashtag
  • How many times the hashtag has been clicked by people performing the same search in your country, compared to the number of times the hashtag has been viewed
  • How many times the hashtag has been clicked by people performing the same search in your country
  • Which device platform you're using, such as the web, Android or iOS