Instagram’s AI-powered ‘Your Algorithm’ feature now helps you customize the roles you see: here’s how it works

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 see and personalize the topics that make up their roles and get recommendations more suited to their tastes. The Meta-owned social media behemoth says 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 will be able to see what topics the company believes they are interested in. Additionally, users can also choose which topics they want to see more or less and their recommendations will supposedly adjust accordingly. “Instagram is leading the way in giving you more control, so your roles feel relevant and made for you. We’re starting with the Rules tab, and plan to bring this capability to Explore and more places in the app soon,” the tech giant said in a blog post. What can you do with Instagram ‘Your Algorithm’? Instagram says that users will be able to see their main interests with the summary of topics that the company thinks users care about the most at the top. The feature will also allow users to set 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 glimpse of 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 underway. Instagram is not the only company experimenting with AI: for a long time users had to face the tyranny of algorithms from social media companies that decided what they saw on their devices. However, the landscape is poised to change with the rise of generative AI. Elon Musk was the first to start using 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 “Follow” timelines. Additionally, Musk has shared multiple times that X plans to completely replace its algorithm with Grok AI. “Grok will literally read every post and watch every video (100M+ per day) to match users with content they are most likely to find interesting,” Musk said in October. Since then, we’ve also seen a new experiment from YouTube called “Your Customized Feed” that also aims to use AI to help users customize the recommendations on their home feed.