Instagram Adds an AI Assistant to Explain Reels Performance and Suggest New Ideas
The U.S. rollout brings account-specific advice into Edits, with free daily usage capped and more access planned through Meta One.
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The U.S. rollout brings account-specific advice into Edits, with free daily usage capped and more access planned through Meta One.
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The update shifts Edits beyond editing support toward account-specific performance analysis: its assistant uses engagement and retention metrics, comments, trends, and audience interests to explain patterns and inform what creators might post next. The U.S. rollout is free within a daily prompt limit; more usage is expected to require Meta One, but the timing of that option is unclear. The assistant offers analysis and ideas rather than generating finished Reels, keeping production with creators and Edits’ existing tools.
Creators can compare Reels, review trial Reel performance, and request concepts, hooks, captions, scripts, or trending audio suited to their style.
Edits lead Brett Westervelt says creators want the tool to handle analysis, not do the creative work for them.
Edits’ separate First Draft feature can already turn uploaded clips into a Reel; the new assistant does not make Reels.
Instagram creators are getting a new way to ask why a video worked—and what to make next. The company is rolling out a conversational AI assistant inside Edits, its video-editing app, to U.S. users. The change puts personalized performance analysis and content suggestions alongside the tools they use to edit.
The assistant’s starting point is a creator’s Instagram activity, rather than a request for general posting advice. Brett Westervelt, who leads Edits, says it combines account metrics with comments, Instagram trends and audience interests. Those metrics include follows, views, likes and shares, plus video retention—how long viewers keep watching.
Westervelt says the assistant can identify patterns in performance over time and surface useful insights that are difficult to spot in the numbers alone. That is the company’s stated value: moving from a collection of measurements to an explanation a creator can act on.
Digital Trends describes several ways creators can use the assistant’s analysis to develop their next post:
One thing we heard consistently: creators want a tool that handles the analysis, not one that does the creative work for them.
Brett Westervelt, Edits app lead, quoted by TechCrunch
Edits developed the assistant with input from a group of creators. It does not make Reels; the app already has a separate feature for that job. Its existing First Draft tool can automatically turn uploaded clips into a Reel.
The rollout follows a June preview at an invite-only creator event.
The assistant is free to use, with a daily prompt limit. More usage is tied to a Meta One subscription, though the timing is unclear: TechCrunch describes it as something creators can unlock, while Digital Trends says Meta plans to offer it eventually.
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