Instagram chief warns: AI photos are advancing faster than humans can adapt to them

In 2025 End of year functionInstagram chief Adam Mosseri addressed the massive shifts AI is causing in photography, stressing that authenticity will become more difficult to achieve — and offering insights into how creators, camera makers, and Instagram itself will need to adapt.

“The main risk that Instagram faces is that as the world changes more rapidly, the platform fails to keep up,” Mosseri wrote in his post, which took the form of 20 slides of text. “Looking forward to 2026, there is one major shift: authenticity has become infinitely replicable.” (He also posted a somewhat expanded version On topics.)

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Mosseri said artificial intelligence makes it impossible to distinguish between real images Images generated by artificial intelligence And as more “intelligent creatives tend toward unproductive, unflattering images,” AI itself will follow suit with images that lean toward that “primary aesthetic” as well. This will force us to change the way we approach images from the jump, he said.

“At this point, we will need to shift our focus to who is saying something rather than what is being said,” Mosseri said. But it will take us years to “adapt” and move away from assuming that what we see is real. “This would be uncomfortable. We are genetically predisposed to believe our own eyes.”

On the technical side, Mosseri expects camera equipment makers to begin offering ways to cryptographically sign images to create a chain of ownership, proving that the images were not created by artificial intelligence.

He also warned that camera makers are going in the wrong direction by offering ways to help amateur photographers create polished images. “They are competing to make everyone look like professional photographers from 2015,” Mosseri said. “Fancy images are cheap to produce and boring to consume. People want content that looks real.”

Instagram and the need to “show signals of authenticity”

Instagram is owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp. Such platforms, Instagram Artificial Intelligence features added In 2025. It also surprised some users who saw AI-created versions of themselves Appearing in advertisements. Like other platforms, Instagram has struggled with the deluge of AI-generated content, including… slopecrowding out content from humans.

Just look at the powerful AI-powered image and video generators emerging in 2025, from Google Nano Banana to OpenAI Sora.

Mosseri said in his posts that he hopes the struggle to distinguish between fake and real content will be addressed by labeling “real media” and rewarding originality in how such content is classified.

Mosseri concluded by listing the steps Instagram should take, driven by the need to “show signals of credibility about who is posting so people can decide who to trust.”

• Create tools, both traditional and AI-driven, to help creators compete with content generated entirely by AI.
• Clearly label your AI-generated content.
• Working with manufacturers to “verify their authenticity when they capture them – taking the fingerprints of real media, not just chasing fakes.”
• Optimize rankings for authenticity.

“Instagram will have to evolve in many ways and quickly,” he said.