Instagram just gave everyone a much better way to fix their feed. After testing it last month, Meta is now letting all English-speaking users worldwide customize their Reels algorithm. If you’re tired of seeing videos that don’t interest you, you can finally tell the app exactly what you want.
The feature starts by showing you a list of topics the app thinks you like based on what you’ve watched lately. From there, you can delete interests or add new ones. There is even a separate section where you can list things you want to see less often. This is a huge help if you accidentally watched one video about a random topic and now your entire feed is stuck on it.
Meta also added a “build your 2026 algorithm” tool. This lets you pick three main topics you want to focus on for the upcoming year. I tried tweaking my own settings and noticed the change almost instantly. Right after I added “snowboarding” to my list, the very first Reel I saw had a snowboarding tag. However, the system isn’t perfect yet. That specific video actually showed someone skiing, so the AI still struggles to tell similar sports apart.
One thing you definitely can’t escape is advertising. When I tried to add “ads” to the list of things I wanted to see less of, the app threw an error message. It wouldn’t even let me search for the word. I did manage to add “sponsored content” and “AI” to my “see less” list, but that likely only filters out videos about those topics rather than stopping the ads themselves.
While the AI still makes mistakes when labeling videos, these new controls give you much more power over your screen time. Instead of letting a computer guess what you want, you can now push the algorithm in the right direction. It makes the app feel a lot more personal and less like a random stream of noise.
