Instagram expanded its Your Algorithm controls to the main feed. This update gives Instagram users a way to manage the topics that influence recommendations across Feed, Reels, and Explore.
About Your Algorithm. The Your Algorithm feature lets people view the topics Instagram associates with their interests, remove topics they don’t want, and add topics they want to see more often. Instagram introduced Your Algorithm for Reels in December and has since expanded topic controls to more recommendation surfaces.
Feed joins Reels and Explore. The update brings topic-level controls to Instagram’s main feed, where recommended posts from accounts users don’t follow now make up a larger share of the experience.
- Users start with a list Instagram generates from their activity.
- Changes to that list help the system adjust future recommendations.
More user control. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the change addresses the lack of control users often feel in recommendation-driven feeds.
- “The system learns from what you tap, watch, and share, but you don’t really get to tell it what you want,” Mosseri wrote.
- Large language models now allow Instagram to describe content clusters in plain language, giving users a clearer way to shape what the system believes they like, Mosseri added.
Interest media. Gary Vaynerchuk described this shift from follower-based feeds (social media) to interest-based discovery (interest media). Platforms now prioritize content based on engagement rather than who users follow. Instagram’s update makes that model more transparent by showing users the interests behind their recommendations.
Why we care. Instagram discovery increasingly prioritizes matching user interests over follower relationships. Your content must signal clear topics and audience intent because those signals help determine where recommendations appear.
More controls are planned. Topics are just the beginning. Mosseri said Instagram is developing controls for people, moods, content types, and other signals.
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