Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says people are spending significantly more time on Instagram as the company's artificial intelligence systems deliver increasingly personalised content recommendations.
Speaking during Meta's second-quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg said global time spent on Instagram grew by double digits year over year, largely due to improvements in AI-powered recommendations across users' feeds and Reels.
"Our recommendations are becoming more personalised, surfacing more fresh content while giving people more direct control over what they see," Zuckerberg said.
He added that Instagram Reels now combines faster AI processing with a new recommendation architecture that draws on users' viewing history to improve content suggestions.
AI boosts engagement
According to Zuckerberg, the latest AI improvements resulted in a 15-basis-point increase in Instagram sessions, with notable growth in content resharing and overall time spent on the platform.
Meta's recommendation system analyses every public Reel and Instagram post using a large language model (LLM) to identify topics and tone, allowing the platform to better match content with users' interests.
The company plans to expand similar AI-powered recommendation systems to additional services, including Facebook.
Privacy concerns remain
The latest AI push follows criticism over Meta's recently launched Muse Image feature, which allowed users to generate AI images from photos on public Instagram accounts belonging to adults.
The feature sparked privacy concerns because eligible public accounts were included by default without prior notice, prompting Meta to suspend the image-generation function within days of its launch.
Users can limit Meta's access to their public photos and videos through Instagram's settings, although similar controls are not available for text, comments or audio content.
Meta faces legal scrutiny
Meta's recommendation algorithms remain under legal and regulatory scrutiny.
More than two dozen US states have filed lawsuits alleging the company designed its platforms to be addictive for children and teenagers.
During the earnings call, Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li acknowledged the company expects continued legal scrutiny over youth-related issues and disclosed $2.40 billion in charges related to legal proceedings.
Despite ongoing privacy and regulatory concerns, Meta continues to invest heavily in artificial intelligence as it seeks to increase user engagement across its platforms.
