---
title: 'Instagram Hashtags Are Dead: The AI Algorithm Replacement'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbhK8AHMjro'
video_id: 'jbhK8AHMjro'
date: 2026-09-04
duration_sec: 674
channel: 'heyDominik'
---

# Instagram Hashtags Are Dead: The AI Algorithm Replacement

> Source: [Instagram Hashtags Are Dead: The AI Algorithm Replacement](https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbhK8AHMjro)

## Summary

This video explains how Instagram's algorithm has moved away from hashtags and now uses AI to categorize content. The creator explains how creators can use pattern recognition and content chains to train the algorithm and reach the right audience.

### Key Points

- **Hashtags are dead** [00:15] — Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, confirmed that hashtags don't work, confirming what many creators have suspected for years.
- **AI analyzes content** [01:42] — The AI uses voice recognition, video recognition, and text recognition to analyze every piece of content from top to bottom.
- **Use niche-specific keywords** [03:09] — Instead of hashtags, creators should include relevant, specific, target-audience-matching keywords and phrases throughout the script.
- **Matching to audience interests** [04:01] — The algorithm matches specific elements in visuals, text, and voice to audience interests, and constantly learns from user behavior.
- **Use pattern recognition** [05:24] — Including recognizable figures and niche-specific objects in visuals helps link content to the audience's existing interests.
- **Create content chains** [08:32] — Instead of one-off posts, create content chains by creating follow-ups on the same topic with the same keywords to train the algorithm.
- **Optimize with calls to action** [09:19] — Use calls to action to get people to behave in a certain way, like saving, sharing, or following, by giving them a reason to care.

### Conclusion

Instagram's algorithm has replaced hashtags with AI-driven analysis, so creators must optimize for AI by using niche-specific keywords, recognizable figures, and content chains to train the algorithm and reach the right audience.

## Transcript

Instagram has moved on from hashtags. Yes. I mean, we've known that. But our old friend Adam Aziri, the head of Instagram, just got confronted in the middle of the street in a weird way. But he was basically asked about how hashtags work. And the way he reacted was fairly interesting to say the least.
Hashtags. Hashtags still work. I'll tell you that. They don't work. So yeah, he's pretty much over it. Instagram's over it. You've known that as well if you've stopped here every once in a while. I've literally had my suspicions for years about this. You can watch all the videos.
You know, I've got proof. Some of them are still so mostly hold up, especially the one with the SEO. Very minor thing, though. But if you're still relying on hashtags, wasting your time thinking about the perfect ones, you're playing the game completely wrong,
and the theory just confirms what we've been seeing on our data for months. For years, actually, hashtags are dead. But here's what's really interesting. Obviously, since we've been removed this thing behind hashtags, they actually replaced it with something way more powerful.
And in the next few minutes, I'll show you exactly what that replacement is and how to use it to get you, let's say, 10 times more views than hashtags ever could. I'm not kidding. Now, we've been analyzing thousands of videos weekly, including all of their scripts.
They're hooked, basically for our clients in my career, and I should, because, you know, we do a complete market research rundown for our clients, basically reverse engineering the algorithm in a niche-specific way. Let's not even get into this.
But here's the thing. We've noticed a pattern. Reels that have more niche-specific phrases and keywords in their scripts and captions continually perform higher. Very interesting. Let me explain. So essentially what hashtags used to do,
which is helping the algorithm categorize your content, is now completely taken over by AI. You know, they kind of let us know between the lines every once in a while. That's what they actually ran from. They said, well, we're leaning heavily into AI
and stuff like this. The first thing about this whole thing is they use, obviously, voice recognition, video recognition, and text recognition. Meaning every picture, carousel, reel gets basically analyzed completely from top to bottom, and they're literally listening to what you say,
what else is in the screen somewhere around the way, and they use all of that information together to find you a matching audience, right? And this is where it gets really important, because instead of hashtags, you need to use this whole thing to feed the algorithm the right signals.
Basically, the way you use hashtags before, just in a little different way. Let me explain. So, for example, if I'm talking about helping creators like you right now, about building content strategies, and I have a guitar in my hand.
Let's say I'm sitting here. Even the same thing applies to the YouTube videos. I'm just sitting here, you know, with a guitar in my hand in the first frame. Obviously, it wouldn't make sense, first of all, for you, for the audience, but also, well, the algorithm seems, okay, there's a guitar.
Somebody's playing guitar. Well, let me show this, first of all, to more guitar people. Same thing with your script The words of screen you know that you have and other elements in your frame everywhere basically need to really be intentional about your target audience and about actually the
content that you talk about, matching your content with your target audience. So the first thing I want you to keep in mind whenever creating content from now on is to really include relevant, specific, target audience matching keywords, phrases, and stuff
like this throughout the script. because Instagram is using all of that information just like they were using that information up on Hashtag before, just a little smarter now. And I'm not saying, by the way, because I know this is going to come up now,
that you should stuff keywords in randomly in your script and hide it. We used to talk about this at some point. Don't do this anymore. It's not going to help you. It might even hurt you. But basically, context matters, and actually acting like a real person matters.
So you want to make sure to naturally include some of these phrases that people in your target audience actually use a lot. or actually search them off, for example, in your content, throughout your script, and usually just include them a little more than you usually would.
You know, kind of like this thing that I think you get. Actually, probably not, because it's complicated to think about it right now. So let me quickly summarize the key points about this integral AI algorithm so far. First of all, it analyzes your voice, your visuals, and text.
Well, take a look at this. It matches specific elements that see in those visuals, text, and voice, thanks to audience interest. And most importantly, it's constantly learning from user behavior and how these people interact with your content.
Keep these points in mind because they're actually very important for what I'm about to show you next. The pattern recognition strategy that's getting our clients basically 20, 50, 100 kb per reel.
Now, the words you say and these things are one thing, but coming from the AI whole thing, we can actually go a layer deeper to help the algorithm categorize your content and find the right target audience even faster.
And basically, it's the same principle, but it's an actual example of how you can help the algorithm a lot, actually. Because, again, it's really glistened between the lines of what Maziri always talks about. Instagram's algorithm isn't just randomly pushing content.
It's constantly trying to predict who's most likely to watch, engage, and share. And one of the biggest ways it actually does this is pattern recognition. So basically the AI behind the algorithm takes a look and learns and tries to predict that by associating specific topics,
keyhole objects, and content formats with certain audience groups, which means you can intentionally feed the algorithm these signals to make sure it places your content in front of the right viewers. So one of the most powerful ways to do that is to show what we call power people in your industry and your content, right?
could be a famous or semi-famous expert, a celebrity, even a viral creator in your niche. So basically including recognizable figures in a visual way that an important thing through the pattern image recognition helps us to really link your content to content your audience already watches with that similar
topic. Same thing actually also applies with niche-specific objects, similar to what I talked about with the guitar. You really have to intentionally think about your whole set, your whole background to keep some of these micro-triggers to the algorithm.
For example, even here on YouTube, because the algorithm is very similar, I have sometimes some Instagram related data and stuff like this keywords in the background because the algorithm is going to pick up on that. That's the one thing but there's another thing
that is way easier for you to do because obviously you don't want to overblow it and make it kind of unreal in a way and not like artificial in a way but this is for example our review channels to pull up quite easily right so reviewing I don't
know the Apple Airpods right and AI is going to recognize Airpods and is going to know Okay, this is a review about AirPods. So it's about text reviews. I'm going to match that. The main thing you want to take away from this, think about some objects that your target audience is familiar with
as a part of your content. What does that have to be? Same principle, by the way, is the whole reaction content space. For example, you can react to the same topic another creator in your industry reacted to or talked about or even actually react to their content,
ideally their viral content, because the algorithm already recognizes, okay, this content is exactly, These are the exact same frames that were pushed to this audience. It's the same audience as yours. So this other creator obviously is in the same niche, in the same industry.
So I'm going to show the content to the same people. Ideally, you take this and don't just blatantly react to somebody without actually adding something real significant to it. But doing that will, again, match the pre-validated audience with your content.
Really helping the algorithm basically the same way that Apex used to do it a year or two, three years ago. Now, so far, we've talked about how Instagram's AI recognizes content. You don't have to use pattern recognition to your advantage.
But most writers stop here, and that's a huge mistake, because there's actually a third element that combines these two strategies together into what I call the data-driven content stacker. Everyone is not just predicting who should see your content, right,
and like water and things you talk about. It's also learning how these people then react and interact with your content over time. And obviously, if you're a little smart about it, you can systematically train the algorithms to do that.
Think about this. When somebody likes, saves, or basically watches your content multiple times, Instagram assumes they want more of it, obviously. So the algorithm acts as if you recommend your next video to them. And then remolsterers get it wrong.
They post a video, hope it blows up. Sometimes it might blow up, actually. And then they move on to the next random piece of content, hope it will blow up again. And this whole thing is really random kind of to the algorithm. Even though it's in the same usage, you might think you have a content strategy.
It's still random a lot of times. It also by the way random to your recent viewers and commenters So you need to basically create what I call a content chain instead of just one off post And you need to be pretty reactive to this whole thing basically creating content chains in your initial growth phase
So let's say you create a video and you see the video performance is better or a lot better than average. What you need to do is kind of go away from your initial proposed content strategy and basically create a follow up or multiple follow ups talking about that same topic with the same keywords basically.
The major keywords. because the algorithm will then understand, okay, people before, they watched it with these keywords. Now, this video also has similar keywords, similar things in the frame, basically what we just talked about right now. So they're going to like it again, and these people will then come back and obviously like it as well
because they already liked your previous one. And basically, you can use all of that data and optimize this whole thing even more to get the algorithms to be on your side. So what do I mean with optimizing? Basically, call to action. Basically, getting people to behave in a certain way,
to interact with you in a certain way. And a lot of the times people are like, yeah, I'm already doing that. I say, if you like my video, like and follow, like and subscribe or whatever it is. Take a look at your recent videos, for example.
See, okay, a similar video got slightly more saves than average, for example. So you specifically tell people in your follow-up video to save it for later and give them a reason to actually why. Don't just say save it for later.
Actually explain to them, make them care. That way the algorithm says, oh, these people save way more than average. These people are exactly the target audience. So boosting this whole thing. Or you can open another loop to say you're going to drop a bombshell discovery that comes right from this thing, basically the same topic.
You're going to drop it tomorrow in your story if you're really sneaky, which means people have to follow you, but they don't want to miss out to see your story. You know, with these small things, they actually matter quite a lot. They really boost the algorithm's understanding of your content, your audience, and finding the right audience for your content.
And basically, if you want to understand what type of content that is for your specific audience, micro-intervention, we actually track exactly what type of content gets repeat views, more saves and shares, stuff like this. And we structure content sequences in a way that specifically trains the AI to keep recommending your content over and over again to the right kinds of people.
With that being said, let's quickly recap the basically three major shifts you need to make in your content strategy right now. Number one, stop relying on hashtags and start optimizing for AI or technician. Number two, use pattern recognition to your advantage.
Think about that. To match pre-validated audiences with your content. And number three, implement this whole content stack to train the algorithm and make things go way faster. There's one more thing, though, and it's actually crucial.
Remember how I mentioned there's still one way to use hashtags effectively? This video right there actually shows you how to use hashtags still with this one way effectively as an SEO tool to get even more out of all of this.
Bye.