Instagram head Adam Mosseri stated that AI will change who can be creative. He believes new tools and technology will empower people who previously could not be creators, allowing them to produce content at a certain quality and scale. However, he also admitted that bad actors will use the technology for nefarious purposes. He added that children growing up today will need to be taught that they cannot believe something just because they saw a video of it.
The Meta executive shared his thoughts on how AI is impacting the creator industry at the Bloomberg Screentime conference this week. At the start of the interview, Mosseri was asked to address recent comments from creator Mr. Beast. Mr. Beast had suggested that AI-generated videos could soon threaten creators’ livelihoods and called it scary times for the industry.
Mosseri pushed back on that idea, noting that most creators will not use AI technology to reproduce the kind of large-scale, elaborate productions Mr. Beast is known for. Instead, he believes AI will allow creators to do more and make better content. He explained that the internet allowed almost anyone to become a publisher by reducing the cost of distributing content to essentially zero. He said generative AI models look like they will reduce the cost of producing content to basically zero.
In addition, the executive suggested there is already a lot of hybrid content on major social platforms. In these cases, creators use AI in their workflow, for tasks like color correction or filters, without producing fully synthetic content. Going forward, Mosseri said the line between what is real and what is AI-generated will become even more blurred. He predicted there will be more content in the middle, rather than purely organic or purely synthetic content for a while.
As things change, Mosseri said Meta has some responsibility to do more in terms of identifying AI-generated content. But he also noted that the company’s initial approach of automatically labeling AI content was not the right focus and was practically a fool’s errand. This was because the system incorrectly labeled real content as AI when AI tools were used as part of the creation process.
The executive said the labeling system needs more work, and that Meta should also provide more context to help people make informed decisions. He did not elaborate on what that context would be, but it may involve systems similar to Meta’s Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking feature. Such a system could flag content that is AI-generated but not labeled as such.
Mosseri suggested that society itself will have to change, not just the platforms. He explained that his young children need to understand that seeing a video of something does not mean it actually happened. He contrasted this with his own childhood, when a video could be assumed to capture a real-world moment. He concluded that people will need to think about who is sharing content and what their incentives are for doing so.
In the discussion, Mosseri also touched on other topics about the future of Instagram beyond AI. This includes its plans for a dedicated TV app and its newer focus on Reels and direct messages as core features, which he said simply reflects user trends. He also commented on how TikTok’s changing ownership in the U.S. will impact the competitive landscape.
On the topic of TikTok, Mosseri said that competition is ultimately better, as TikTok’s U.S. presence has forced Instagram to do better work. Regarding the TikTok deal itself, he said it is hard to parse, but it seems the app’s fundamental build will not meaningfully change. He described the new TikTok U.S. operation as the same app, with the same ranking system, creators, and user experience, suggesting it is not a major change in terms of incentives.