Instagram is giving users an unprecedented look under the hood of its recommendation system — and creators should pay attention to what their audiences do with it. The platform’s “Your Algorithm” feature, which launched on Reels in October 2025 and has since expanded to Explore and the main Feed, lets users see the topics Instagram believes they are interested in and directly adjust them.

The feature lives behind an icon in the upper-right corner of the Reels tab and in the app’s settings under Content Preferences. Inside, users see a panel of interest topics inferred from their activity — watch time, taps, saves and shares — translated from the system’s internal signals into plain language. They can remove topics that no longer fit, add topics they want to see more of, or specify topics they want to see less of. Changes apply across Reels, Explore and the home Feed as one unified system, since all three draw on the same preferences.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has framed the move as a response to years of complaints about algorithmic opacity, and the company says recommendations adjust in real time as users edit their topics. Posts surfaced because of a chosen interest can even carry a small label explaining why they appeared. The company has also invited users to designate priority interests guiding recommendations for the year, and says future controls may extend to people, moods and content formats.

For creators, the implication cuts both ways. On one hand, audiences can now explicitly subscribe to topics — a viewer who adds your niche is telling the system to find more of it, which rewards clearly positioned content. On the other, vague or inconsistent positioning makes it easier for viewers to tune a creator out with a tap. The takeaway: make your topic identity unmistakable. A consistent niche, clear on-screen text and captions that name the subject help the system — and now the viewer — file your content under exactly the interest you want to own.