Adam Mosseri: Instagram Bets on Long Form Video, TV and Creator Pay

Instagram head Adam Mosseri explains why Instagram is adding long form, horizontal video and a TV app two years after saying long form was not a priority. In this conversation with Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, published on the Colin and Samir channel on October 26, 2026, Mosseri covers the new “features” format, why creator payments have to break even, how Instagram ranks content, what sends per reach means for new creators, how the platform is handling AI-generated characters and stolen jokes, and why he expects public anger about AI to keep rising.

TLDW

Instagram is launching features: long, horizontal videos that can run over an hour, surface as short clips in the feed, take up two grid spots in Explore, and play on a TV. Mosseri still believes long form video is not naturally adjacent to friend content, so the plan is to make long videos present as short ones and hope the formats connect. On money, he says platform payouts stay small unless they break even, and pre-rolls, mid-rolls, subscriptions and brand deals are all on the table. The back half turns to ranking (originality, breakouts, recency, sends per reach), AI accounts that must now label themselves, comedians having their bits stolen by AI characters, and a monthly rise in anxiety and anger about AI that Mosseri expects to get worse.

Thoughts

The test Mosseri sets for long form is stricter than anything a creator will hear from YouTube, and it is the key to reading this launch. More time spent is not a win on its own. He describes a period, before Reels worked, when pushing more video into Instagram and Facebook drove watch time up while hurting nearly everything else: DMs, story shares, original photo and video posts, and revenue per hour. One 20-minute video is time that could have been a hundred things sent to friends, liked or commented on. Reels only became good for Instagram once they turned social, a clip you send to a friend who replies and then watches something else. Features have to repeat that trick, and nothing in the product shown so far does it yet. A 90-minute podcast is the least sendable thing on the internet (Samir says he texts Colin podcasts and Colin listens to about 1% of them). So expect Instagram to judge features by whether the clips get sent and the full episode comes along, not by hours watched, and expect the format to be cut back if it eats into messaging.

The section on stolen jokes is the clearest look in the episode at how AI breaks a ranking system’s assumptions. Stand-up comedians are messaging Mosseri because AI characters are performing their bits, often from scripts that collect the most viral Reels of recent months and re-perform them. Instagram already rewards original creators over aggregators, but its originality signal was built for a simpler world: an account called Colin with the same man in every video is probably original. Once a synthetic character can say a human’s words in a new voice and face, matching the video stops working and Instagram has to match the joke itself. Mosseri admits there is no rights management for jokes and says the platform will not censor people for saying the same thing, so treating these posts as unoriginal content is the only lever left. That makes originality detection the policy that matters most for AI on social media, more than labels, which Instagram is now requiring for AI-generated characters but which misfire whenever a classifier flags a real creator by mistake.

Mosseri’s monetization argument is unpopular but rare in its honesty. Instagram’s performance payouts for video are ROI negative “by a long shot,” he says, because paying creators does not make them post much more, the extra posts tend to be worse, and if a paid creator vanished viewers would still be shown videos they enjoy. That is the replacement-value problem, and it is why he will only scale payouts that break even. Long form complicates this in a useful way. Ads attached to a specific video are easier to credit to one creator, but pre-rolls and mid-rolls annoy viewers more than an ad scrolled past between Reels, and Instagram has never run them. Samir’s counterpoint deserves more weight than it gets: marketplaces undervalue nuance, and two shows with the same views can be worth very different amounts to a sponsor. Mosseri’s answer is a mix of scaled programs and bespoke deals, which is reasonable, but it means most long form creators on Instagram should plan on brand deals and treat any platform check as a bonus.

The AI sentiment exchange near the end is more candid than a platform head usually allows himself. Mosseri says the trend in the United States is “month over month” more anxiety, frustration and anger about AI, sharpest in creative industries, and that he expects it to keep getting worse for the next couple of years. His explanation of what sits underneath it is the most interesting part. The specific complaints (training on creators’ work, safety, job loss) come down to a fear of being left behind while a small tech class gets very rich. His answer is to build AI that hands creative people power: tools that find a creator’s most influential followers, explain why a post worked, and let users talk to their algorithm and correct it. Whether that lands depends on Instagram being seen as the one handing out the tools and not the one taking the content, which is hard for a Meta product. It also sits awkwardly beside his closing lesson as a creator: his own creator spotlight series had to be rebuilt in three or four formats over seven years because, as he puts it, what works today might not work in six months.

Key Takeaways

Instagram is adding long form, horizontal video called features, which can run over an hour, play on TV, and appear in Explore as two-by-one tiles that take up two grid spots.
A short video that is part of a longer one will let viewers tap through to the full feature, and Instagram plans to build tools that clip long videos into short pieces.
Mosseri stands by his statement from two years ago that long form and friend content are not adjacent. What changed is TV: by Instagram’s estimate, YouTube’s US time on mobile devices is flat and its growth is coming from TV.
Background listening (closing the app while a long video keeps playing) is not built yet but is being discussed, and Mosseri ties audio to a future with smart glasses.
Creators get paid three ways: by the platform, by fans and by brands. On Instagram it is mostly brands, and the platform’s video bonus program loses money.
Mosseri will scale platform payouts for any format only if they break even. Pre-rolls, mid-rolls, subscriptions and a creator marketplace for brand deals are all being considered.
Carousels are doing well because a carousel with music can show up in the Reels viewer, gets a second chance at the second slide if you scroll past, and lets viewers set the pace.
More photos and videos are sent in DMs than posted to Stories or Reels. Notes are huge with teens, and in some countries teens send more media through Instants than through Stories.
Instagram ranks for originality, breakouts and recency as well as engagement, so a brand new account can now reach millions of views.
Sends per reach matters most for reaching people who do not follow you, and Instagram is adding it to Insights after it appeared in the Edits app.
Instagram says it weighs watch time less than its competitors, and long form only counts as a success if it grows DMs, sends and retention as well as time spent.
AI-generated character accounts are not ranked differently, but they must now label themselves. Instagram is avoiding automatic labels because false positives anger real creators.
The context menu (the two lines at the top right of the mobile app) is meant to show whether a post is likely AI, whether it is verified as camera-captured, how old an account is and how often it has changed its name.
Mosseri has run a Friday AMA for seven or eight years with almost no changes, while his creator spotlight series had to be reinvented in three or four formats.

Chapters

01:25 Instagram Announces Long Form Video and TV

Mosseri walks through the new upload flow, which looks a lot like YouTube’s with a custom thumbnail, and shows long videos sitting in Explore as double-width tiles. Colin and Samir read back his quotes from two years ago saying long form would erode Instagram’s core. He says he stands by them, and that the plan is long videos that can also show up as short ones, so long form becomes adjacent to Reels and Reels stay adjacent to friends. The reason for doing it now is TV and cultural relevance.

08:52 How Long Form Video Will Get Monetized

Monetization was the top question from creators in the studio. Mosseri explains why Instagram’s performance bonuses lose money, and that ads attached to long videos make payouts easier to measure but frustrate viewers more. Samir argues that entertainment is great at nuance while tech is great at scale, and asks whether Instagram will license shows and fund originals. Mosseri says bespoke deals will help bootstrap the format, recalls how IGTV evolved instead of dying, and says Threads went from 100 million installs in four and a half days to a slump to over half a billion users.

22:52 Why Carousels Are Having a Moment

A magazine-style carousel about their interview with Jack was one of the show’s best posts in a while. Mosseri gives three reasons carousels work: with music they can appear in the Reels viewer, they get a second showing on slide two, and flipping through slides drives likes and sends beyond time spent. The hosts add that viewers control the pace, and that a different shape, such as 4:3 video, stands out. They also talk about focused accounts for a single show versus broad personal accounts.

28:35 Underrated Features: Channels, Close Friends, DMs, Notes and Instants

Mosseri has about 4.1 million followers but values the two or three hundred thousand who let him buzz their phone through his broadcast channel. Close Friends lists make fans feel personally chosen. For everyday users, DMs carry more photos and videos than Stories or Reels, notes start conversations among teens, and Instants offer shoot-and-send photos with no gallery upload and no ranking. His favorite barely used feature is Blends, a shared Reels feed inside a DM thread.

33:56 How Instagram Ranks Content and the Short to Long Problem

Exclusive content is valuable, but creators are spreading across platforms to reduce risk. Mosseri says Instagram ranks for originality, breakouts and recency, and that winning affinity from rising creators is easier than luring decade-old YouTubers. Moving from short form to long form is the most common problem the hosts hear on Creator Support. Mosseri says YouTube’s long form system leans on an existing audience while Shorts does not, and that it is easier for Instagram to move toward YouTube than for YouTube to move toward friends.

41:56 Watch Time, Sends Per Reach and What Makes a Great Instagram Show

Instagram tracks how much of a video you are likely to watch but weighs sends, comments, likes and story shares too, and Reels only worked once they became social. Subway Takes works because every take reminds you of a friend. For new creators, Mosseri points to sends per reach, then likes per reach and average watch time. The hosts discuss designer Alan Peters and the scripted series Brooklyn Coffee Shop as candidates for longer formats, and how uncut versions might be sponsored.

51:58 AI Accounts, Labels and Stolen Jokes

An AI-generated character account with heavy real engagement prompts the question of whether AI accounts rank differently. They do not, but they now have to label themselves. Mosseri describes comedians whose bits are re-performed by AI characters, and says originality is the principled answer even though it is harder to detect. He also covers ranking AI content fairly, scam ads with AI personas, and a context menu meant to show where an account and its posts come from.

59:36 AI Agents and the Future of Social Media

Creators already use Meta’s AI to find the most influential people following them and to organize saved posts. Mosseri wants insights that read the content itself (people like it more when you smile), a way to talk to your algorithm and correct it, and he wonders what AI-generated, personalized interfaces mean for a shared space like Instagram.

1:01:29 Why People Are Afraid of AI

Samir compares AI content to more self-driving cars and delivery robots on the streets of the Instagram city. Mosseri lists the fears (training on creators’ work, safety, job loss) and says they come down to being left behind. He sees anger about AI rising every month in the US, sharpest in creative industries, and expects it to get worse. The hosts close the topic with Karen X. Cheng’s AI-made printed morning newspaper.

1:08:05 Adam Mosseri’s Lessons as a Creator

The hosts pitch a get ready with me video as his first feature. Mosseri says his Friday AMA has barely changed in seven years, but his spotlights on smaller creators went from Stories to green screen videos to carousels as each format stopped working. The ranking had not changed. What people responded to had.

Notable Quotes

“The reason I am not interested in pursuing long form video in a meaningful way is because I don’t want to erode our heart, our core reason to exist.”
Adam Mosseri, two years earlier, read back to him by the hosts

“I don’t think of platform payments or performance-based incentives or bonuses as a revenue driver. I’d be psyched to scale them up for any of these formats as long as we’re breaking even.”
Adam Mosseri, on creator payouts

“You want to make it work and then you want to make it good and then you want to make it grow.”
Adam Mosseri, passing on advice from the head of Threads

“We focus way less on watch time than all the competition does, but we do care about watch time.”
Adam Mosseri, on how long form will be ranked

“We’re taking a big risk with this long form thing. I don’t know if it’s going to work. We could be wrong.”
Adam Mosseri, on features

“The trend definitely is like month over month more anxiety and more frustration and more anger about AI.”
Adam Mosseri, on public sentiment in the US

“What works today might not work in six months.”
Adam Mosseri, on his own lessons as a creator

Watch the full conversation with Adam Mosseri on the Colin and Samir channel here.