Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, admitted something that very few technology executives dare to say out loud: public resistance to artificial intelligence is only beginning. In an interview with the Colin and Samir podcast, released last week, he not only acknowledged that backlash against AI is going to grow — but also explained why the platform isn't doing much about it.
His direct statement was unmistakable. "It's not only getting worse, it's going to continue to get worse," said Mosseri, referring to the growing wave of anxiety, frustration, and anger about AI in creative industries and the general public. "I think we're going to see more frustration and anger, some of it founded, some of it unfounded, over the next couple of years, and that's going to make it hard for a lot of people, not just in the industry."
What makes these comments particularly revealing is the context. Mosseri wasn't speaking at an academic conference or in front of investors — he was on the most-watched podcast in creator culture, discussing Instagram's launch of widescreen and long-form video. The AI question came as a natural topic, at a moment when the platform was pushing creators to produce more content than ever.
But it was precisely at that intersection — product, policy, and public sentiment — that the interview became one of the most candid moments from a Big Tech executive on AI in 2026.
Mosseri's paradox
There's a direct contradiction between what Mosseri says about AI and what Instagram actually does. In October, he confirmed the platform began requiring accounts with AI-generated characters to self-identify. "I think it's important that people know if what they're looking at is real or not," he said. But he also stated that "it's not practical to try to ban AI content."
That "not practical" phrase sums up two years of Instagram's AI strategy. The platform doesn't ban AI content. It doesn't label it at scale. It doesn't reduce the reach of AI-generated posts in the feed — in fact, Instagram's algorithm already serves AI content just as aggressively as any other content, with zero penalty.
In a separate report from The Verge, Mosseri said the company is "actively working out what to do" about AI fakes, but the phrase reads more like a strategic placeholder than a clear direction. What he really explained was that the issue of comedy material being stolen by AI characters is one of the most frequent complaints in the team's direct messages — and that "originality" is the principled answer, meaning copied bits would be treated as unoriginal content and thus ranked lower.
What this reveals is a company that recognizes the problem but doesn't want to solve it genuinely. If banning is impossible and automatic labeling generates false positives — Mosseri cited his own carousel incorrectly flagged as AI — then why not invest in better detection? Why not reduce the visibility of clearly AI-generated content, even without banning it?
The answer seems to lie in the metrics. Instagram measures success in time spent, engagement, and shares. AI content generates engagement. Millions of YouTube channels already use AI tools, and YouTube itself acknowledges that 20% of content shown to new accounts is "low-quality AI video" — but also that some AI channels earn millions annually from views. Instagram faces the same crossroads: AI content fills the feed, keeps people scrolling, and advertisers pay for attention regardless of who or what created it.
"There's a lot of great AI content on Instagram," Mosseri admitted, "but there's also a lot of AI slop." The term he uses — "slop" — first appeared in a platform-endorsed year-end slideshow, and now he says the word is used "too liberally." It's an interesting move of backpedaling: first the concept was coined, then it was downplayed when creators began feeling threatened by it.
The question Mosseri raises about creators is even more revealing. He said Instagram's video payment program is "ROI negative" — the platform spends far more than it recoups — and that scaling it "doesn't really make sense." Creators who receive money from the platform "don't produce a lot more content," and when they do, it's often lower quality than what they were already posting for free. Without that lift, he said, paying creators mostly shifts views from one video to another.
This is where Mosseri's critique of AI doubles as a defense of the status quo. If paying creators doesn't work, and banning AI doesn't work either, then the solution is to leave the feed as it is — full of AI slop, mixed with good AI content, and everything else. The problem isn't AI; the problem is that the algorithm doesn't recognize quality yet. In other words, the responsibility for feed quality falls on creators, not the platform.
The root of the fear
Mosseri identified something that social media researchers have already observed in data but rarely declare from the executive tier: the fear of being replaced. "I think fundamentally what it comes down to when you really have a heart-to-heart with someone is a fear of being left behind in some way," he said, referring to those who fear AI will take their jobs — whether as content creators, engineers, or mathematicians.
This fear is not new. It appeared at graduations where students booed technology CEOs, in surveys showing that 40% of enterprise apps will have embedded AI agents by the end of 2026, and in Interactive Advertising Board reports documenting AI's effect on the creative economy. But what differentiates the 2026 reaction from previous waves of tech concern is its intensity. It's no longer "AI will change the job market"; it's "AI is already changing, and I don't know how to adapt."
Mosseri offers no solution to this. He proposes no requalification programs, suggests no ethical boundaries for AI use on the platform, and proposes no protection mechanism for creators. Instead, he frames the issue as a universal, almost philosophical fear, one with no practical answer — and then moves on.
Silence as policy
What the Colin and Samir interview really reveals is not what Mosseri said, but what he didn't say. In 20 minutes of conversation, he spent fewer than 30 seconds speaking explicitly about AI. The rest covered algorithms, monetization, long-form video, and competition with YouTube. AI was treated as a public policy issue — something that happens outside the platform, about which the platform can comment but not change.
It's a strategically calculated position. If the public thinks Instagram is full of AI slop, the blame is on AI, not the platform. If creators feel replaced, the blame is on the technology, not the absence of a fair monetization model. If the algorithm serves low-quality content, the blame is on the algorithm — and the algorithm is something "is working on improving," without a timeline.
In the end, what Mosseri really said was that resistance to AI will get worse, that it will affect many people, and that he doesn't know what to do about it. The implicit message, however, is clear: Instagram will continue using AI to fill the feed, will continue serving AI content as aggressively as anything else, and will keep expecting creators to adapt on their own.
The question is: when the platform finally acknowledges that the problem isn't AI, but what AI does to the platform, what will happen?
Sources: The Verge, NetInfluencer, The Verge
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
