Instagram has announced that it’s currently testing a new feature enabling creators who “often create with AI” to self-identify with an “AI creator” label. The announcement was made yesterday, May 04, by the official Instagram creators account, mentioning that the label will appear on your profile as well as alongside any AI-generated content if toggled on in your account settings.
With this new optional feature, Instagram says that it’s making it easier to "understand how content is made, who's behind it, and what’s worth your attention." In principle, this is a move that I, and I’m sure millions of others, welcome as we see more and more AI-generated content that’s becoming increasingly indistinguishable from material generated by a human.
However, being optional, at least for now, is seemingly the obvious flaw in Instagram’s plan to “increase transparency” on the platform. Coming clean as an “AI creator” could lead to losing out on revenue or diminishing trust with followers, and it’s inevitable that a percentage of AI creators won’t self-identify, which is why I think Instagram needs to enforce relevant accounts to activate the feature.
Article continues belowI don't want to see people losing out on income, but if that income has been built on misleading, dishonest content that doesn't give viewers the option to decide whether they want to consume AI material, then I’m all for Instagram outing accounts, but this can’t be maximized through optional policies.
Admittedly, enforcing AI creators to self-label poses more questions, especially as Instagram has said that it’s testing the “AI creator” label on accounts that "regularly create content with AI." What constitutes “regularly,” but also, to what extent does AI have to have been used in creating the content for it to be considered AI-generated?
While I really want to see all social media—and all internet platforms for that matter—enforce rigorous AI content labeling, platforms would also need to ensure guidelines explicitly outlining what they consider to be AI-generated content.
This is particularly important for photographers who regularly use AI to make minor edits to images they took themselves, and who have already been bitten by automatically added AI-content labels, which was the case when Meta introduced the “AI info” tag in 2024.
Ironically, Meta’s own AI bots scan the company’s ecosystem of apps (Instagram, Facebook, and Threads), looking for “industry standard” clues of AI usage to automatically apply the label. However, tests conducted by PetaPixel showed that photos edited with Adobe's generative fill tool in Photoshop would trigger the label even if the edit was only to a "tiny speck." Subsequently, the feature evoked backlash from users, forcing Instagram to tighten its policy.
Yesterday’s announcement highlighted that if an “AI info” label has already been applied to an Instagram post by a self-identifying “AI creator,” then any automatically added “AI info” label would remain in place.
Some users have responded in the comments supporting Meta’s latest AI-labeling move, while others have vented their anger at AI content as a whole. One respondent commented: “Nuke AI in general actually, make a whole diff platform called AInstagram for them.”
I actually think that this comment makes a valid point. AI-content labeling managed by AI systems with inherent flaws will always face issues, so perhaps a separate platform for AI content, or even an option to switch between viewing only human-generated and AI-generated content, would be the optimal solution.
Anyway, according to the latest announcement, the new “AI creator" label doesn’t impact “how your account or content is distributed across Instagram," which will hopefully encourage those relying on AI-generated imagery to let their audience know without fear of repercussions.
So far, Instagram has said that only some AI creators will have access to the new labeling feature, but that it will be “expanding” this in the coming weeks.
Meta hasn't said anything about potentially enforcing it in the future, but I hope the social media monopoly will, along with strengthening the systems it has in place to detect AI usage. Although, I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
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