Here are some new updates on Instagram.

Multiple reports suggest that Instagram may soon update its “Explore” section. Recently, it rolled out the Stories feature to compete with Snapchat. TechCrunch reported that some users will see Stories from different accounts that they can follow. The feature is expected to roll out soon for all users in the future.

New suggestions can be viewed on top of the screen, which will be filtered according to the user preferences. Users can follow accounts that publish Stories of their interest. Instagram would use algorithms to learn about interests of each user and provide related Stories.

The latest update could help Instagram keep pace with Snapchat, which has been leading the race with its own Snapchat Stories for a long time. The new feature by Instagram is somewhat similar to Snapchat’s Featured Stories and is in no way a unique idea. But with Instagram having more users, it can provide far more personalized Stories, as compared to Snapchat.

Users won’t have to rely on their friends to see an interesting story. With the new update, their feed will have content based on their preferences. This is similar to the changes that Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, made with its Trending Topics Discussion, where it is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to determine trending topics.

Instagram’s Explore section continues to gain popularity and is currently used by more than 100 million users daily, which is about one-third of the total daily active Facebook users. Currently, the social network has 500 million monthly active users (MAU). If the popularity continues to grow at the same pace, we might see another few million users subscribe to the service. The Explore tab was previously called Popular, as it only showed most liked and most commented posts on Instagram. But once it became boring for users, the Facebook-owned app started to provide more personalized posts through Explore to keep the users engaged. With Stories, Instagram is all set to get another boost of users in its Explore section.
 Source