Instagram brings AI-powered controls to help you customise the Reels you see: here's what you should know

Instagram has announced a new update that allows users to customize what they see on their algorithm using the power of artificial intelligence. The company says its new feature called “Your Algorithm” will allow users to view and personalize the topics that shape their Reels and get recommendations that are more tailored to their taste.

The Meta owned social media behemoth says that users will see a new icon while watching Reels with two lines and a heart. Tapping on the icon will open their Algorithm and they'll be able to see what topics the company believes they are interested in. Moreover, users can also choose which topics they want to see more or less of and their recommendations will supposedly adapt to it.

“Instagram is leading the way in giving you more control, so your Reels feel relevant and made for you. We’re starting with the Reels tab, and are planning to bring this ability to Explore, and more places in the app soon,” the tech giant said in a blogpost.

The feature will also allow users to tune their preferences by typing in topics they want to see more or less of. Instagram will also allow users to share their algorithm with other users to give their friends and followers a peek into what they like.

The new feature is already available to users in the United States and Instagram says a global rollout for English speakers is currently in progress.

Instagram not the only company to experiment with AI: For long, users had to face the tyranny of algorithms of social media companies which decided what they saw on their devices. However, the landscape has been poised to change with the rise of generative AI.

Elon Musk was the first to begin the use of his Grok AI to better rank posts on X (formerly Twitter). The social media company now uses Grok to rank posts in the “For You” and “Following” timelines. Moreover, Musk has shared multiple times that X plans to replace its algorithm entirely with Grok AI.

“Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they’re most likely to find interesting,” Musk had said in October.

Since then, we have also seen a new experiment from YouTube called “Your custom feed” which is also aimed at using AI to help users customize the recommendations on their Home feed.