Meta says people are spending more time on Instagram, and it credits its artificial intelligence for the increase. Global time spent on the app grew by double digits year on year in the second quarter, the company told investors, driven by AI-tuned recommendations in the main feed and in Reels.
The gains are specific enough to be measured. Meta said a reworked Reels system lifted sessions by 15 basis points, a small-sounding figure that, across billions of users, translates into a meaningful amount of extra attention captured.
The pattern holds across Meta’s apps. Video time has surged on both Instagram and Facebook, the company said, as short-form recommendations pull users from the feeds they follow toward an endless stream the algorithm assembles for them.
Mark Zuckerberg described the change as more personal, not just more. “Our recommendations are also becoming more personalized, surfacing more fresh content while giving people more direct control over what they see,” he said, pairing the engagement gains with a nod to user choice.
The technical shift underneath is notable. Zuckerberg said Reels now combines faster inference with a new architecture that draws on a deeper history of what each user has done, letting the system predict more accurately what will keep them watching.
