Instagram may be considering spinning off its Reels feature into a standalone app.
The company’s head, Adam Mosseri, was reportedly overheard discussing the idea with employees as part of a broader strategy to better compete with TikTok, according to The Information.
The report said the move is part of parent company Meta’s internal initiative called Project Ray aimed at taking on the wildly popular TikTok. Project Ray also focuses on improving the algorithms behind content recommendations and enhancing support for longer Reels, the report said.
The news follows Instagram’s recent launch of Edits, a video editing app strikingly similar to TikTok owner ByteDance’s CapCut platform. Instagram has also reportedly attempted to lure TikTok creators to its platform with cash bonuses of between $10,000 and $50,000.
TikTok’s legal status in the US remains up in the air following the enactment of a law banning it if certain conditions were not met by mid-January. The Trump administration is not currently enforcing the ban and, after a brief interruption, TikTok continues to operate for US users.
Meta declined to comment for this story.
This wouldn’t be Instagram’s first attempt at a TikTok competitor. In 2018, the company launched Lasso, an app that let users create short-form videos with music, text and filters to appeal to younger audiences. However, it shut down two years later as the company shifted its focus to Reels.
According to Sol Messing, a research associate professor at NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, the move could appeal to some users who may just want to watch Reels rather than visiting Instagram or Facebook to access them. Messing was previously an employee of several tech companies, including Meta and X.
“Whether it works out for Meta depends on how it affects the recommendation system underlying Reels,” he told CNET. “Many have complained it’s not as good as TikTok. Creating a separate app may reflect a broader effort to prioritize Reels at the company, which could be indicative of investing more in the Reels recommender system.”
At the same time, he said, Meta likely wants to see a return on its significant investments in generative AI and launching a separate app could encourage more streamlined collaboration within its gen AI team.
Still, Messing said: “It’s hard to see this move as unrelated to TikTok’s recent legal drama.”
