Instagram is finally letting people take the wheel of their Reels feed, instead of leaving everything up to a mysterious algorithm. After testing the feature with select users last October, Instagram has now rolled out ‘Your Algorithm’ to all English-speaking users globally.
The announcement came from Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, giving people a more direct way to shape the kind of videos they actually want to see. At its core, Your Algorithm lets users actively tune their Reels experience.
Inside the Reels tab, you can now add or remove topics based on what you enjoy watching. For a limited time, Instagram is also letting users pick their top three interests for 2026, which Mosseri described as a way to tell your algorithm what you want more of going forward.
How ‘Your Algorithm’ actually works
Your Algorithm works alongside Instagram’s existing recommendation systems, rather than replacing them entirely. The app will still look at things like what you watch, like, and skip, but now it also factors in the topics you explicitly choose. That makes it easier to control your feed without having to aggressively tap “Not Interested” on dozens of posts.
Instagram users can adjust these preferences at any time, not just during the early-year window. You can revisit the settings, remove topics that no longer appeal to you, or add new ones as your interests change. The feature is currently available to all English-language users, with a wider rollout expected later.
There are still clear limits to how much control Instagram is willing to hand over. According to Engadget, the feature does not let users dial back ads entirely. For example, trying to add “ads” as something to see less of simply returns an error saying no results were found.
Interestingly, broader categories like “sponsored content” can be added, and even “AI” shows up as an option, though that likely affects videos about AI rather than posts created with it.
Instagram has been steadily refining the way you interact with content, from letting you revisit the Reels you’ve already watched through a new watch history feature to expanding editing and customization tools that help creators shape their videos and feeds more precisely.
Now the latest update gives you a simpler way to tune your Instagram feed. Whether that leads to better Reels or just a different kind of scrolling remains to be seen, but at least now, the feed is a little more on your terms.
