As AI-generated material spreads across social platforms, Instagram head Adam Mosseri expects public unease to deepen. In an interview on the Colin and Samir podcast, he said frustration and anger are growing, particularly in creative industries, and that the effects will reach beyond technology workers.
Why concern about AI may grow
Mosseri described opposition to AI as broader than a reaction from young people or creative professionals. He connected it to worries people have about how the technology could affect their work and whether they will be able to keep up with changes.
Those concerns include who owns creative work and whether it may be used to train models. Mosseri also pointed to safety and the possibility that AI could displace jobs. He named content creators, engineers and mathematicians among the people who may worry that their work could be affected.
In his view, these different concerns can come down to a fear of being left behind. That framing links personal anxieties about jobs and ownership to a wider question: who gets to benefit as AI becomes more common?
Instagram is weighing quality as well as labels
Mosseri said Instagram does not rank AI creators differently simply because they use AI. But he raised a separate question about how the platform evaluates the quality of AI-generated posts compared with other content.
He described AI output as mixed: some of it is good, while some is low-quality material often called “AI slop.” Mosseri has used that term before, but said he thinks people apply it too freely. His comments leave room for a distinction between AI as a way to make content and the quality of the content itself.
That distinction matters for a platform deciding what to recommend. If AI content varies widely, the question for Instagram is not only how to identify it, but how to judge whether it merits visibility in users’ feeds.
Labels address one part of the problem
Instagram is starting to require AI accounts to label themselves so users can tell whether what they are viewing is real. The platform also launched a label for AI accounts earlier this year and began cracking down on AI-generated profiles in August.
Labels can give users context, but they do not resolve every challenge raised by synthetic media. The source article notes that misleading AI material, including celebrity deepfakes, remains an issue. Mosseri has said Instagram is actively working out what to do about AI fakes, while also arguing that banning AI content from the platform is not practical.
That leaves the company with a balancing act: making the origins of content clearer while deciding how to handle material that misleads people. Mosseri’s comments suggest Instagram expects AI-generated posts to remain part of the platform, making disclosure and content ranking central questions.
A growing debate beyond the technology industry
Mosseri’s forecast points to a debate that may become more heated as people encounter AI in creative work and daily life. Some frustration, he said, is founded and some is not, but either way it can make the transition difficult for people beyond the tech industry.
For creators, the issue is not limited to whether a post was made with AI. It also touches control over their work, the possibility of model training on that work, and uncertainty about future employment. For Instagram, responding means navigating those fears while maintaining a platform where both AI-made and non-AI content appear.
The policy choices ahead are therefore practical as well as cultural: how to label AI accounts, how to address misleading fakes, and how to rank content users see. Mosseri expects tension around AI to increase over the next couple of years, making those decisions more consequential for both platforms and the people who use them.