Instagram's Explore tab uses AI to show users photos and videos from accounts they have never seen, chosen to match their interests. The system runs multiple AI models in sequence to narrow down and rank content from across the entire platform. Instagram published a technical explanation in June 2023.

The Explore system operates in three stages. First, a retrieval stage uses collaborative filtering (identifying users with similar taste to predict preferences) and network analysis to gather up to 1,500 candidate posts. Second, an early ranking model narrows these to 100. Third, a final ranking model uses multi-task learning — predicting the likelihood of multiple engagement types simultaneously — to produce the final order of content shown. The system has been linked to concerns about content "rabbit holes" and to body image research from Meta's own internal studies.