Instagram's Your Algorithm: why clear topics now decide brand reach

Until recently, Instagram users had very little view into how the app saw them. They could mark a post as Not interested or mute an account, but the conclusions Instagram had reached about them stayed hidden. Your Algorithm opens that up. It spells out, in plain language, the topics Instagram thinks a person cares about, and lets them add topics, remove them or ask for less of them.

For a brand, the change is modest but the consequence is clear. Your audience now has a direct say in which subjects reach them, and each recommended post carries a label explaining why it appeared.

From Reels in the US to every surface

Instagram announced Your Algorithm on 10 December 2025, starting with Reels in the United States before extending it in English worldwide. Explore followed on 15 April 2026, with topic buttons across the top of the page, and on 10 June 2026 the feature was extended to the Feed, Reels and Explore. Instagram calls it one unified system, so an adjustment made in one place changes recommendations everywhere. Since June it has also been testing other ways in, such as pulling down on the feed and buttons beneath Reels.

The Arabic question

Every Instagram announcement about the rollout describes it as global in English, and none mentions Arabic. People in the UAE and Saudi Arabia who use Instagram in English should have it. Whether it works for people using the app in Arabic had not been confirmed when we checked.

What the user sees

An icon in the top corner of Reels and Explore opens a page that Instagram builds with AI. It does four things:

• It summarises the person's top interests, putting into words the topics Instagram believes matter most to them.
• It lets them tune those interests by typing in topics they want more or less of, and recommendations shift in response.
• It lets them share their list of interests to their Story, if they choose.
• It adds labels. A post recommended because of one of those interests shows a line such as From Running or From Street Style.

Instagram has been careful not to oversell it. At launch, its vice president of product told Fast Company that adding interests does not make them the only thing a person sees. This is one input among many, and the system still learns mostly from what people watch, tap and share.

The From label is free research

The label is what brands are likely to notice first, because it tells each viewer which of their interests brought a post to them. That is useful information. Imagine a skincare brand whose Reels keep reaching people through a travel interest rather than beauty: Instagram is reading the content as travel. That might be acceptable, or it might mean the posts are not communicating what the brand believes they are.

You cannot see the label as it appears to other people, but you and your team can see your own. Ask a handful of people in your target audience which label your posts show when they are recommended. It is a quick way to test whether content is landing in the topic it was made for.

How it affects reach

Your Algorithm does not change how Instagram ranks content overall. What it changes is what each person has told Instagram they want to see, and the practical effects flow from that:

• Posts with an obvious topic go further, because they are easier to match with people who have asked for that topic.
• Mixed signals cost reach. An account that covers everything gives Instagram, and its audience, no clear topic to file it under.
• Topics can be switched off. Once someone turns a topic down, posts filed under it will reach them less, however good they are.
• Recommendations to people who do not follow you lean heavily on topic, and for most brands that is where new followers and customers come from.

The older controls are all still there alongside it: Not interested on a post, snoozing suggested posts for 30 days, hidden words, resetting suggested content completely, and the Following and Favorites feeds, which show accounts in time order. Meta's own explanation of how Feed and Explore are ranked now includes Your Algorithm in that list of controls.

Adjusting a brand account

There is no trick to it. The answer is the advice good social teams already follow, with higher stakes:

• Choose the two or three topics your account should be known for, and make most posts clearly about one of them.
• State the topic early, in the opening seconds of a Reel and the first line of a caption, using the words people search with.
• Stay consistent. An account that returns to the same subjects week after week is easier to match than one chasing every trend.
• Track reach to non-followers, not only likes. If it falls after a change of direction, the new content may be landing in a topic your audience never asked for.

If you post in both Arabic and English, decide deliberately which language carries which topic. The words in a caption and on screen are likely to be part of how Instagram works out what a post is about.

Timing still matters once the topic is right, and our best time to post tool is a simple place to start.

If your account has drifted across too many subjects and you want help choosing the few it should own, ALXO's social media team would be glad to talk about it with you.