Instagram is testing a set of changes that would put the controls for its recommendation system much closer to where users are already looking. The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, shared details of the experiments on the 27th of June. If the tests go well, users could soon be shaping what appears on their feeds and in their short video streams with far less effort than before.
The changes build on a feature called Your Algorithm, which Instagram launched in December 2025. It allows users to see a summary of the topics the platform believes they are interested in and to tell the app which subjects they want to see more of or less of. When first released, the feature was available only in the Reels section. It has since been expanded to the Explore tab and to the main home feed. The latest tests are about making those controls faster and easier to reach.
Mosseri’s post showed three specific ideas currently being tried out. None of them is available to all users yet. The first involves pulling down on the home feed. That gesture would bring up the Your Algorithm menu directly, rather than requiring users to navigate through the settings section of the app.
The second involves a short video that a user is watching. Swiping upward on a Reel would open the same customisation prompt. A person could then quickly tell Instagram to show them more or fewer videos on a similar theme without pausing to go into their account settings.
The third is perhaps the most immediate. Buttons would appear directly beneath each short video as it plays. A user could tap one of those buttons in the moment to signal whether they wanted to see more content like the one they are watching. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to shape recommendations while actually using the platform rather than separately adjusting preferences in a menu.
Mosseri described the broader aim of these experiments in terms of making the recommendation system feel less like something that happens to the user and more like something the user can genuinely direct. One idea still in development goes further. It would use a conversational format in which the app presents prompts and the user responds, gradually refining what the platform recommends without the user having to identify specific topics by name.
According to report, the reaction from users who saw Mosseri’s post was revealing. The most widely supported comment was not about any of the new controls he had described. It was a request for something much simpler. Users asked Instagram to show them more posts from the accounts they already follow, rather than filling their feeds with content from creators they have never chosen to follow at all.
That response reflects a tension that has been at the centre of Instagram’s design for several years. The platform has moved steadily away from showing posts in the order they were published and toward a system that predicts what each user is most likely to engage with. That change increased the time people spent on the app. It also introduced a growing share of content from accounts the user had made no deliberate choice to follow.
See Also: Ford Rehires 350 Veteran Engineers After AI Flaws Trigger Costly Recalls
Data gathered this year suggests that recommended content now accounts for roughly 48 per cent of all posts appearing in users’ feeds. Organic reach for posts, meanwhile, has fallen. This shift has benefited some creators who rely on the recommendation system to reach new audiences. It has frustrated others who feel their existing followers no longer see their posts reliably.
The Your Algorithm controls do not change the underlying approach. Instagram is not moving back to a timeline based on when posts were published. What it is doing is offering users more ability to influence the topics that drive what they are recommended, and doing so in ways that require less effort than the existing settings menus demand.
Whether users will take advantage of these controls is a separate question from whether they are useful. Research across various platforms has consistently found that most people do not adjust settings even when those settings are available and even when they actively complain about wanting more control. Making the controls accessible through gestures and in-the-moment buttons is partly an attempt to reach the majority of users who would never seek out a settings menu on their own.
There is no confirmed timeline for when any of these features will move beyond the current testing phase. Some may never become widely available. Instagram has noted that some concepts shown during testing do not make it into the final product. What is clear from Mosseri’s post is that the company is actively searching for ways to make the recommendation system feel less opaque to the people using it.
About the Author
Marcel Chidozie is a tech analyst and writer covering foreign news, fintech, and emerging technologies at TechRegard. Based in Nigeria, He's passionate about translating complex tech developments into compelling, accessible stories for diverse audiences. His work focuses on how technology shapes innovation across Africa and globally.
