Instagram is cracking down on AI-generated accounts that pose as real people, addressing complaints that users have unknowingly followed fake "influencers" only to later discover they weren't human. The platform is also renaming its "AI creator" label to "AI-generated profile" to make it clearer when a featured person is not real, and will now actively seek out and penalise accounts that fail to self-label as AI-generated.

Accounts caught not disclosing their AI-generated status will have their reach limited, with posts no longer recommended to non-followers in Reels and Explore, though owners can appeal if they believe they were wrongly flagged. Notably, the rule only targets AI-generated people posing as real individuals; those simply using AI tools to create other content are not required to add the label, meaning the change won't remove general AI-generated content from users' feeds.