GoKawiilIn a nutshell: There's a huge number of accounts on Instagram that feature AI-generated characters, but identifying these as non-human isn't always that simple. As such, the social media giant is changing its current "AI creator" label to the clearer "AI generated profile." It will also limit the reach of any of these accounts that don't use this designation.
It's not just AI-generated slop content sweeping across Instagram these days. There are also countless personas that are entirely AI-generated – many of which appear to be influencer-style accounts – and not all of them make it clear that the person isn't real.
Instagram previously allowed creators of these accounts to add an "AI creator" label, but it was optional and could still suggest that the persona is a real human who simply "creates" with AI.
The new "AI-generated profile" label is a lot clearer, and should help the many men who engage with AI-generated women on the site understand they're not real.
Being optional means some account creators won't add the disclaimer to their AI personas, of course. Instagram says that if it detects an unlabeled AI account in these cases, the account's reach will be limited. That means non-followers won't see the posts as recommendations in the Explore section or in Reels.
A lot of these personas are essentially influencers, selling products for legitimate brands. There are no specific rules requiring brands to tell consumers when advertising content has been created using AI, and many companies would rather go down this route than pay a real person to advertise their goods – they tend to be very defensive when they're called out, too.
Instagram said it introduced the changes because its users "don't like seeing a profile that seems human, only to find out later that the person featured is AI-generated."
Unfortunately, Instagram is pretty specific about this applying only to profiles featuring an AI-generated person rather than a human. This won't apply to the seemingly millions of accounts that pump out AI-generated content all day, every day, which Instagram pleasantly describes as "creators who simply use AI tools as part of their creative process."
That type of AI content can still be labeled separately, though Meta's system is hardly foolproof. Across Instagram, Facebook and Threads, the company adds an "AI info" label when an image, video, or piece of audio contains technical signals showing it was generated using AI, or when the uploader admits it. If AI was only used to edit something, the label is hidden in the post's menu, while photorealistic images made using Meta AI are marked "Imagined with AI."
Ultimately, both systems still depend on Meta detecting the content or the person behind an account being honest enough to label it themselves. The company admits that the technical markers it relies on can be removed, so it seems unlikely that every fake influencer is suddenly going to announce itself. But making these accounts easier to identify – and harder to push in front of unsuspecting users – is at least a start. Even if it won't stop thousands of men from asking a collection of pixels whether she's single.