As fake images become more convincing than real ones, Instagram's leader has tasked camera manufacturers with embedding digital signatures, shifting to a method that labels which images are genuine instead.
With AI-generated content increasingly dominating social media in 2025, Adam Mosseri, Instagram's CEO, said the platform can no longer effectively detect AI fakes. Therefore, the approach must change from tagging images as fake to verifying which ones are authentic.
Mosseri added that AI identification tools such as watermarks have proven ineffective because they can be easily removed, and AI technology has advanced to create images too seamless for algorithms to detect accurately.
He proposed that camera and smartphone manufacturers embed cryptographic signatures into image files at the moment of capture, providing proof that the photo was taken through a real lens rather than generated by a server.
The Instagram CEO also stated that polished square images are essentially 'dead,' believing camera companies are misguided in trying to make everyone look like professional photographers of the past.
Mosseri recommends that the best proof of authenticity is presenting raw, imperfect, or sometimes unattractive images—signifying a real human with flaws rather than an image crafted through carefully scripted prompts.
. Source:@mosseri