Instagram boss admits AI has won, but where does that leave creatives?|Creative Block

Confirm your truth, According to Adam Mosseri.

Instagram boss admits AI sloppiness has won, but where does creativity leave?

The AI ​​call is all over social media in 2025, and Meta's head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, finally knows something obvious.Sustainability will be an issue in 2026.

A lot of AI-generated content still features glitchy artifacts and that glossy, almost plastic sheen it gives off.But it will become harder to distinguish them as AI models get better at replicating less hyper-realistic styles.

While Adam says Meta is still working to improve its AI-generated media identification, he seems willing to pass the buck.AI content is becoming so ubiquitous that it will be more useful to underwrite real media, he thinks now.And for now, it's up to the creators to prove that they're not fake.

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"Everything that makes creators important — the ability to be real, the ability to connect, the ability to have an unmistakable voice — is now suddenly available to anyone with the right tools," Adam wrote in a lengthy post on Threads."The rivers are starting to fill up with synthetics."

That's why it looks like it's from an indifferent bystander who shows interest in what's happening.It makes no sense when Instagram encourages people to use its Meta AI model and allows AI users on Instagram a year ago.

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Meta made an attempt to flag AI-generated media with the label 'AI Insights', but much of it went unnoticed and original photos with minor AI touch-ups were flagged.Adam's latest post appears to be a reluctant admission of defeat.

"All major platforms will do a good job of identifying AI content, but it will get worse over time as AI gets better at simulating reality," he wrote."And there are already a growing number of people like me who believe it would be more practical to fingerprint real media rather than fake media."

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One idea for how this might work is that camera makers "could cryptographically sign images as they're taken, creating a chain of custody."

This is possible.Many camera companies have already integrated or announced plans to integrate tamper-resistant metadata from the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and/or the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) to identify image origin.Meta must find a way to read this.

Adam does not mention other media.Maybe he thinks that all the illustrators and digital artists have already left Instagram because of the anti-AI Kara.But even here, potential solutions for identifying real content already exist.Adobe software can verify authenticity through proof of content.Again, Instagram needs to be able to read this data if it's serious about flagging non-AI material.

Prove that you are right

What can creatives do in the meantime?Making things uglier is Adam's suggestion.His reasoning is that artificial intelligence and camera phones have combined to make professional-looking images ubiquitous, reducing them.

He goes so far as to say that camera companies are "going for the wrong aesthetic."

“They compete to make everyone look like the professional photographers of the past.Every year we see phone cameras have more pixels and more image processing.We are romanticizing the past.Portrait mode is all about faking the background of a photo to create the soft glow you get from the shallow depth of field of a fixed lens. It looks good.”

The suggestion that camera companies are wrong to improve their products is strange, since the sole purpose of cameras is to produce the latest trending Instagram aesthetic in the body.But the prediction of where Instagram is headed is probably accurate: creatives need to prove they're right.

"Beautiful images are cheap to make but boring to use. People want content that looks real," Adam said.

"Conscious producers will use self-images that are determined and uncertain. In a world where everything can be perfect, imperfection becomes a signal. Rawness is no longer the best option—it's a guarantee. It's a defense. A way of saying: It's true because it's imperfect."

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For artists and designers, this means that the clever Instagram strategies we laughed about back in 2018 are no longer relevant.Instead, ads have several options.

The first is to decide that Instagram isn't worth it and stop worrying about it (for alternatives, see our roundup of the best social networks for artists and designers).

But if Instagram is still important to your exposure as an artist, it might be time to start sharing behind-the-scenes videos, and it works all the time if you're not already doing so.Instead, let's consider a method that many authors have already adopted.Instead of submitting the latest edit or version, show a process and content that says something about you as an artist.

Instead of showing what you made, show how you made it, how hard it was to make it, and how you can make it by yourself.Until Instagram can decide what is artificial intelligence and what is not artificial intelligence, Creators will have to get used to proving that their creation is authentic and that it was created.

Joe is a freelance journalist and editor for Creative Bloq.He writes articles, features and buying guides and tracks the best tools and software for creatives, from video editing software to curators and tools.A veteran journalist and photographer, he currently works as a project manager in London and Buenos Aires at the design, production and business agency Hermana Creative.A group of designers, photographers and video editors specializing in creating visuals and design materials for the hospitality industry.He also dances Argentine tango.

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