Interviews

Adam Mosseri announced long-form horizontal video on Instagram

Reels can link to hour-long uploads, Explore will surface them, and Mosseri said Instagram for TV is part of the push.

Adam Mosseri, who leads Instagram, said the app will support long-form horizontal videos that can run over an hour on phones and televisions. Colin and Samir pressed him on the shift two years after he argued long form could erode Instagram’s focus on friends.

Mosseri said viewers scrolling Reels will be able to tap into the longer upload, and Instagram will start surfacing those videos in Explore and on profile grids in a two-by-one layout. Upload flow on desktop mirrors YouTube-style thumbnail picks, including on Instagram for TV.

He said he still stands by his earlier view that long-form video is not adjacent to friend connections, which is why the rollout will take time. Mosseri pointed to YouTube’s U.S. growth on connected TVs and said Instagram wants cultural relevance on the screen people use for longer sessions, including shows such as Subway Takes.

On creator pay, Mosseri said Instagram’s performance-based video incentives remain return-on-investment negative and the company will not scale them while payouts exceed incremental ad revenue. For long form he said ad attribution is easier but pre-rolls and mid-rolls would be new friction for users who today mostly see ads between scrolls.

Mosseri said Instagram will require AI-generated character accounts to label themselves and will treat recycled viral bits as unoriginal when ranking feeds. He said anxiety, frustration, and anger about AI are rising month over month in the United States, especially among creatives.

He said the product team discussed background playback, including listening after closing the app, about two days before the interview, and called that capability a significant open question for podcast-style uploads.

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