Instagram CEO says in the age of AI, you can’t assume what you see online is real

TechSpot: ‘At the close of 2025, Instagram head Adam Mosseri used his personal account to post a 20-page presentation examining what he called the “new era of infinite synthetic content.” The slideshow, which reads like a digital memo to the future of photography, argues that technology has permanently blurred the distinction between authentic and artificial imagery – and that Instagram, once defined by its personal photo diaries, has already moved beyond that stage. Mosseri said the traditional, more intimate feed was “dead” years ago. What replaces it now, he suggested, is a world in which users must adapt to a new default assumption: that not everything they see is real. “For most of my life I could safely assume photographs or videos were largely accurate captures of moments that happened. This is clearly no longer the case and it’s going to take us years to adapt,” he wrote. He described a shift from trust to verification as the foundation of visual culture online. “We’re going to move from assuming what we see is real by default, to starting with skepticism. Paying attention to who is sharing something and why. This will be uncomfortable – we’re genetically predisposed to believing our eyes.”

Also read: More than 20% of YouTube’s feed is now “AI slop,” report finds “Not only are more than half the articles on the web created by AI, but over 21% of YouTube videos being show to new users is “AI Slop.” That’s according to a new report, which also found that the US is in third place when it comes to consumption of these low-quality generated videos. Video editing firm Kapwing highlights AI slop’s definition as careless, low-quality content generated by computer applications and used to farm views and subscriptions or sway political opinion…”