Instagram's AI-generated profile label: who has to add it

An AI-generated profile on Instagram is an account that regularly posts content featuring an AI-generated person instead of a real human, and the AI-generated profile label marks it. The label replaces the older AI creator label, under a name that makes the meaning plainer. If your account is built around an AI persona, you can and should add it yourself, by editing your profile and toggling on AI-generated profile.

If you only use AI tools as part of how you make things, you don't need this label at all. We've gone through what gets labelled, what a viewer actually sees, and what happens to reach, because that last part is where the real consequence sits.

What is the AI-generated profile label?

It is a profile-level label for accounts that regularly post content featuring an AI-generated person instead of a real human. It replaces the older AI creator label, under a name that makes the meaning plainer.

The word doing the work is profile. The label applies to the account as a whole, which makes it different from the AI content label, which appears on individual posts when AI tools were used to create or modify that particular piece of content.

Once it is on, it appears on the profile and alongside that account's content, unless the specific media already carries a label indicating it was created or edited with AI.

Who has to add the label?

If the person your audience sees is AI-generated and shows up regularly, this is your label, and we'd add it without waiting to be asked. Creators with unlabelled profiles of that kind can and should apply it themselves.

Creators who simply use AI tools as part of their creative process don't need to add it. Writing with AI, cleaning up audio, restyling a clip, generating a background: none of that turns a profile into an AI-generated profile, because a real person is still the one on screen.

If you added the older AI creator label at some point, you'll see the new name and get a chance to review it, confirm that it still fits, or remove it if it no longer applies. We'd take that prompt seriously rather than tapping through it.

Where does a viewer see the label?

In three places, and all of them sit early in the journey rather than buried in a settings page. We'd assume every new viewer sees at least one of them.

• On the account's profile page, and next to the profile in search.
• Next to the account's content in Feed, Reels and Stories.
• Next to comments or messages from the profile.

So a viewer meets the label at roughly the same moment they meet you, which is the point of it. People don't like seeing a profile that seems human, only to find out later that the person featured is AI-generated.

A label read on the way in is a much smaller problem than a discovery made later.

How do I add the AI-generated profile label?

1. Open your profile and go to editing your profile.
2. Toggle on AI-generated profile.
3. Check your profile and a recent post to confirm the label is showing.

Adding it proactively does not change anything about your profile's reach. Using the label will neither help nor hurt it, so there is no reach penalty waiting on the other side of that toggle.

There is an upside too, beyond compliance. Being upfront that the person featured in your content is AI-generated can help you build more honest relationships with your followers, and it keeps your account eligible to appear in recommendations.

Does the label affect reach or recommendations?

Yes, but only in one direction, and it is worth being precise about which. Adding the label leaves your reach exactly where it was. Not adding it, when your profile features an AI-generated person, is what costs you, and in our view that asymmetry is the whole story.

Profiles that feature an AI-generated person and do not add the label will have their reach limited. Accounts detected without a label are notified, and can check Account Status to see whether they are no longer eligible to appear in recommendations.

Recommendations are where people who have never heard of you find you, so losing them is a real cost for a growing account. Instagram's originality rules bite in the same place, and our post on original content rules covers where that line falls. If you want to see recommendations from the viewer's side, our post on Your Algorithm is a useful companion.

What if my profile is limited by mistake?

There are two paths back to being recommendable. Add the AI-generated profile label so the profile accurately reflects its AI-based identity, or appeal the decision.

Detection systems are not always perfect. Check Account Status to see whether there are any limits to your reach, and appeal restrictions you believe were made in error. If the appeal succeeds, the profile and its content are eligible to appear in recommendations again.

We'd keep Account Status on a monthly habit either way. It is the one screen where limits on an account surface, whatever caused them, and a quiet week of reach is much easier to explain once you have looked.

Labelling costs nothing and settles a question your audience would rather not discover three months in. Add it if it applies to you, leave it alone if you are simply a person who uses AI tools, and check Account Status when something looks off.

Whoever is on screen, the person in your comments is real. When they comment, Instoly can send each of them a DM with what they asked for, and only people who commented ever get one.