Instagram Bets on Long-Form Video, but Its Head Admits It May Not Work

The interview opens with Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, describing the platform's long-form push as a big risk. He says, "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."

The hosts introduce the update as one of the biggest changes to the app since its 2010 launch with photos and filters. It adds horizontal videos known as features, which can run over an hour and be watched on phones and TVs.

The hosts say they want to discuss monetization for creators, what the change means for them, how Instagram works, which content breaks out, and the platform's future, including the impact of AI on feeds.

The hosts ask how much of the strategy is about podcasting, given the heavy clip culture around podcasts and streaming. Mosseri says the intention behind clips is to raise awareness for a show, but he does not assume a viewer who watches a clip will watch the full episode, partly because of friction.

One host notes that on YouTube, a link at the bottom lets viewers connect to the full video. The other host argues the strategy is more about the screen, since their audience already watches longer versions of shows such as Subway Takes and Trackstar on televisions.

Mosseri agrees that podcasts are the cleanest example but not the only one. He cites YouTube in the US: as best the company can tell, time spent on devices is flat and all growth is coming from TV. He says Instagram wants to be the most culturally relevant platform and must show up where people are, in its own way.

One host says that when he asked creators what they wanted to hear about, monetization was the top answer. Discovery on Instagram is strong, with new accounts finding audiences on their first posts, but the host asks whether the platform is giving creators a place to distribute a show or a business model that supports shows.

Mosseri lists three ways creators can be paid: by the platform directly, by fans, or by brands. He says that on Instagram the primary source is brands, some creators are paid by fans, and a small performance-based program exists but is ROI-negative for video. The company spends more than it makes back by a long shot, so he says it does not make sense to scale it because it would burn capital.

The hosts ask him to explain again the idea of replacement value, which Mosseri said in the previous interview. He says that when the company pays for content, the payments need to drive consumption that would not otherwise happen.

One host recalls Mosseri saying that people are great at nuance and tech is great at scale. He applies that to entertainment and technology, arguing that Mosseri's description of monetization is framed around scaling, while the industry is moving toward entertainment and nuance.

The host argues that marketplaces undervalue nuance. He says two creators with the same number of views may be paid differently based on the nuance of their audience, the quality of that audience, and their time in the market.

He predicts that over the next couple of years the relationship between platforms and creators will change, especially as Netflix has joined creator licensing and original programming, though the transcript of this passage does not spell out the details.

The host says a win would be releasing his podcast regularly on Instagram, so that people could close the app and listen. He says that would be a huge win. He also plans to add that Instagram distribution to his media kit and sell additional distribution to advertisers.

He notes that sponsorships on business podcasts often appear as a watermark on clips and long-form versions, because clips account for most impressions. One of his clips featuring Kareem has more than a million views, and the host says those clip views should combine with the full episode's views.

The other host summarizes the win as increasing surface area for discovery and for sponsorship. He says what would be annoying is if, a year from now, the platform no longer cared about long-form, pointing to IGTV in 2018 as an earlier example of a format that had a dramatic shift.

Mosseri describes Threads' launch, saying it reached 100 million installs in four and a half days. Early coverage said it had replaced Twitter, but he says the novelty wore off and the numbers came back down. He says the team then built back up, and two to three years later Threads has over half a billion users and is growing.

The hosts say their publication Publish Press has seen outsized engagement on carousel posts with text that reads like a magazine. One carousel of an interview with Jack is among its most engaged posts in a while.

Mosseri gives three reasons. If music is added, a carousel can appear in the Reels viewer. A carousel gets at least a second chance, because a user who scrolls past may see it again at the second position. And the format drives deeper engagement, since users flip through slides and are more likely to like or send them. One host adds that users control the pace, unlike a reel they might speed through.

Mosseri says more photos and videos are sent in direct messages than posted to Stories or Reels, even when text is removed. He says DMs are much bigger than the primary way people share on Instagram every day.

For teens, Notes are significant. These are status updates at the top of the DM tab, which Mosseri compares to AIM away messages. He says they are major conversation starters, with people sharing where they are and using cryptic emoji talk.

He adds that Instants, a quick route to the camera that does not require a separate app in many cases, have become large. In some countries where Instants launched first, more teen media is sent through Instants than posted to Stories in a given day. He also notes that for college-age cousins, Snapchat is the primary way they communicate, while the hosts say Snapchat seems to lose its teen users when they reach college.

Mosseri says he likes creative hacks that creators come up with, and that is where the good stuff happens. One example described is a creator who changed the accounts they followed each month based on a cause and was encouraged to explain it in a video.

Another example is creators using Close Friends to make fans feel recognized, which can spark joy. The passage does not include further detail on how these tactics perform.

One host says YouTube has moved further into the entertainment business and that the barrier to entry is currently higher there. Anyone can upload content, but many creators struggle to find an audience with long-form videos because viewers face a click-and-watch barrier.

As a result, many creators find success first in short-form on YouTube Shorts, Instagram and TikTok. The hosts say their show Creator Support, which tries to solve creators' problems, has received thousands of submissions, and the number one problem is how to go from short-form to long-form.

Mosseri says the two systems on YouTube are very separate, not only in format but also in how recommendations work. He says Instagram looks at the percentage of followers a creator reaches, and wants a follower count to mean something even in a recommendations-first world. He adds that YouTube appears to optimize long-form very differently, where the existing base matters, while short-form does not seem to depend on it.

Mosseri says that podcast creators currently clip episodes with third-party tools or edit them themselves, and use a link in their bio because captions cannot hold hyperlinks. He says he hopes features will let creators grow reach by also posting the full-length episode on Instagram.

He encourages creators to experiment, figure out whether a strategy makes sense given the available tools, and accept that the answer may be no for some.

A host asks whether repeat returning viewers matter when someone does not follow an account but keeps coming back to it. Mosseri says returning content shows up in the user's explorer and reels tab. He says Instagram uses a user's interaction history to predict the likelihood of future actions, so if someone always watches a particular creator's videos, the system predicts they will probably watch the next one.

The hosts then discuss a graphic designer whose work they enjoy and whether he could make long-form content, suggesting design-principles tutorials or behind-the-scenes process videos.

The hosts raise an AI-generated character account, Jean Phil, which has a lot of real engagement even though it looks AI-generated after a close look. A creator asked how Instagram views such accounts compared with human-made accounts.

Mosseri says Instagram does not rank them differently but believes people should know whether what they see is real. He says the company is now starting to require AI accounts or AI-generated characters to label themselves.

Mosseri says originality is probably the principal answer to the problem of stolen material. He says the hosts' DMs have been full of complaints about stand-up bits being stolen by AI characters, and he says he tries to read them even though there are too many.

Mosseri says there is a lot of great AI content and also a lot of what some call AI slop, a term he thinks is too loose because one person's slop may be another person's favorite. He says Instagram's ranking may not rank AI content as well as non-AI content.

He explains that new content categories are not yet fully tuned by ranking systems. Instagram uses surveys, including 'worth your time' scores normalized for position, to measure this.

Asked about AI agents acting on a user's behalf, Mosseri says creators are already using Meta AI for pulling interesting things, though the answers are not as good as they should be. He says Instagram is trying to catch up quickly.

He gives an example: asking Meta AI for the most interesting or influential people who follow you. He says the team is thinking about insights that combine content understanding with patterns, such as whether smiling makes people like content more, and imagines users asking their algorithm why they saw something and giving it feedback.

One host says he was surprised by the booing of AI at graduation speeches and asks whether the anxiety is growing among younger people. Mosseri says many young people embrace AI and many oppose it, so he is not sure whether age and opposition are correlated.

He says anxiety, frustration and anger about AI have increased month over month, across age groups and industries in the US. He says the sentiment is sharpest in creative industries and less so in finance or math, and cites China as an example where AI is widely accepted.

Mosseri predicts that over the next few years, whether right or wrong, dissatisfaction will grow and will be difficult for many people outside the industry. He says people's core fear is being left behind, and he wants the industry to shape technology in ways that give people power, which for Instagram means giving creative people power.

Near the end, a host asks Mosseri what he has learned as a creator and what his first long-form video might be. The host suggests a day in the life of the head of Instagram, starting with how he gets dressed and his coffee at the office.

Mosseri says he does not think anyone cares, but the hosts argue that people open the app every day and would want to see what is inside. Mosseri says he can try it.

The conversation shifts to a joke title, 'Get ready with me to launch long form on Instagram,' and Mosseri agrees to try a day-in-the-life or get-ready-with-me video, though the transcript does not show that he committed to a specific date.