New ‘Your Algorithm’ feature lets Instagram users personalise and fine-tune their reels recommendations

Instagram has introduced a tool that gives users more visibility and control over the recommendations they see on the platform, beginning with the Reels feed. The feature, Your Algorithm, is among the largest adjustments yet to how Meta’s social networks let people interact with the AI-powered recommendation systems underlying their services.

With over a billion people using short-form video daily on Instagram, the Reels feed has become a key focus of engagement on the platform. However, the algorithm that determines Reels recommendations has historically been opaque, leading to frustration for users who feel like they are “stuck” with certain videos. Your Algorithm is designed to make AI-inferred interests behind a person’s Reels recommendations visible and adjustable.

Features of your Algorithm

The customization panel will be accessible by tapping on a heart-icon with sliders present in the top-right corner of the Reels feed. The panel will show Instagram’s AI summary of topics it infers the user is interested in based on recent interactions on the app like what they watch, like, share, and skip. The panel also gives the following options:

• View the list of suggested topics it infers a user is interested in to be factored into Reels recommendations.
  
• Slide a topic up or down to indicate more or less interest in that topic.
• Add a new topic not already identified by Instagram.

Share the list of interest topics they are matched to in their Instagram Story, where other users can tap to view and even copy their feed interests.

Instagram says a person’s feed recommendations will change immediately in response to what they adjust in the panel, giving users more power to tailor their Reels feed experience. The company also said it would likely expand similar controls to the Explore tab and other parts of the platform over time.

Toward Algorithmic Transparency

Social networks like Instagram and TikTok have long been criticized for their opaque, “black box” algorithm systems that invisibly determine what shows up in users’ feeds. The issue has long been that users feel their feeds no longer match their evolving interests or are saturated with repetitive, stale content. By revealing at least part of the “magic” of how recommendations are determined and allowing users to directly adjust the parameters, Instagram is opening the doors to some level of algorithmic transparency.

Social media analyst Marco Arment wrote about TikTok’s Manage Topics feature introduced in March, which already gave users broad control over feed preferences, but he added that Instagram is taking this “much further” by showing topic summaries inferred by AI and also letting users add new topics rather than choosing from a pre-defined set.

What’s the big deal?

Users should expect to spend less time seeing videos and content they are not interested in, giving them more satisfaction from their time on the app. Brands, publishers, and creators on the app may also take notice of how users are being categorized in an effort to adapt content and engagement to best reach audiences.

Instagram says it will initially launch Your Algorithm in the US, with a broader English rollout in other regions in the coming weeks. The company added this is the “first step” and more controls over Instagram algorithms will likely be coming in the future. As recommendation engines have increasingly shaped online experiences on social media, e-commerce, and other platforms, Instagram’s changes could potentially shift the ground for user agency and power in the attention economy.