In a 2025 year-end post, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri addressed the massive shifts AI is causing in photography, stressing that authenticity will be harder and harder to come by — and offering thoughts on how creators, camera makers and Instagram itself will need to adapt.

“The key risk Instagram faces is that, as the world changes more quickly, the platform fails to keep up. Looking forward to 2026, one major shift: authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible,” Mosseri wrote in the post, which took the form of 20 text slides — no images at all. (He also posted a somewhat expanded version on Threads.)  

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Mosseri said that AI is making it impossible to distinguish real photos from AI-generated images and that as more “savvy creators are leaning into unproduced, unflattering images,” AI itself will follow with images that lean into that “raw aesthetic” as well. That will force us, he said, to change how we approach images from the jump.

“At that point we’ll need to shift our focus to who says something instead of what is being said,” Mosseri said. But it will take us “years to adapt” and to get away from assuming that what we see is real. “This will be uncomfortable — we’re genetically predisposed to believing our eyes.”

On the technical side, Mosseri predicted that makers of camera equipment will begin offering ways to cryptographically sign photos to establish a chain of ownership, proving that images aren’t AI generated.

He also warned that those camera makers are going the wrong direction by offering ways to help amateur photographers create polished images. “They’re competing to make everyone look like a pro photographer from 2015,” Mosseri said. “Flattering imagery is cheap to produce and boring to consume. People want content that feels real.”

Instagram and the need to “surface credibility signals”

Instagram is owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, and like those platforms, Instagram added AI features in 2025. It also surprised some users who saw AI versions of themselves popping up in ads. Like other platforms, Instagram has struggled with the flood of AI-generated content, including slop, crowding out content from humans.

Just look at the powerful AI image and video generators that emerged in 2025, from Google’s Nano Bananas to OpenAI’s Sora.

In his posts, Mosseri said he hopes that the struggle to figure out what’s fake and what’s real will be addressed by labeling “real media” and rewarding originality in how that content is ranked.

Mosseri concluded by listing steps that Instagram will have to take, driven by a need to “surface credibility signals about who’s posting so people can decide who to trust.”

• Build tools, both traditional and AI-driven, to help creators compete with fully AI-created content.
• Label AI-generated content clearly.
• Work with manufacturers to “verify authenticity at capture — fingerprinting real media, not just chasing fake.”
• Improve ranking for originality.

“Instagram is going to have to evolve in a number of ways,” he said, “and fast.”