Instagram’s video editing app has a new AI assistant, and it knows your account. Meta rolled out the Edits assistant on September 30, 2026, to everyone using Edits in the U.S.
Agents who post reels can pull up their insights any time. Figuring out what those numbers mean for the next video is a whole other job, and Instagram built the assistant to help with it.
Here’s what the tool does and how agents can start using it.
What the Edits Assistant Is
Edits is Instagram’s own video editing app. Creators generally see it as Instagram’s native answer to CapCut.
The assistant is an AI chatbot inside Edits. You ask it questions, and it answers with feedback based on insights it gathers on your account: the content you post, performance data, etc.
Brett Westervelt, who leads the Edits app, describes the assistant as a creative partner that knows each creator and their audience. He pointed to the many AI tools that write generic hooks or content calendars without knowing anything about your Instagram account.
Instagram built the tool with a council of creators who tested early versions over the past several months. Westervelt said the first version includes some of creators’ top requests.
Throughout testing, creators told Instagram they wanted a tool to handle the analysis for them. They want to keep the creative decisions for themselves, and Westervelt said the assistant is built around that idea.
TechCrunch reports that Meta gave creators a preview of the assistant in June at an invite-only event. At the time, Meta said it was working on a desktop version of Edits.
YouTube announced last week that it’s working on a chat-based video editing tool of its own, which should be out early next year.
Based on what each company has shared, TechCrunch says Meta’s assistant is built around analytics, and YouTube‘s tool is meant to help creators with the editing itself.
What the Edits Assistant Knows About Your Account
The assistant reads your account’s Instagram metrics, including:
- Follows
- Views
- Video retention (how long people keep watching)
- Likes
- Shares
The assistant pairs those numbers with other information from Instagram, like:
- Your comments
- What’s trending on Instagram
- What your audience is into
From there, it can spot patterns in how your videos perform over time, and it points out insights that are hard to catch by looking at the metrics on their own.
Instagram suggests asking the assistant questions like these:
- Which posts connected with your audience this month
- Why one reel held attention and another didn’t
- What’s trending on Instagram
- Ideas for your next video
Content Ideas Built on Your Own Track Record
Along with reading your numbers, the assistant can help you plan your video content. Instagram says it can help you:
- Come up with video concepts, captions, scripts and hooks (the opening lines that grab a viewer) based on what’s worked for you in the past
- Research your own ideas to see which concepts have done well on Instagram
- Fine-tune videos for your followers based on how different versions of trial reels perform
- Find trending audio that fits your niche and style, and save it from the chat
Instagram creators who tested the tool shared what they learned from it. One creator found that his videos about building a greenhouse in the desert outperformed his cooking videos.
A beauty creator and makeup artist got strong results after the assistant suggested posting a 7-second reel in between her 1-minute videos. Changing up her video length was a new idea for her.
She told Instagram she could check her 30-day and 90-day insights on her own. Getting ideas based on that data is what made the tool useful to her.
Getting Started and Usage Limits
The Edits assistant is free, with a daily limit on how many prompts you can send. A prompt is any question or request you type into the chat.
Instagram says power users will be able to get more usage with a Meta One subscription, Meta’s paid subscription plan. The company hasn’t given a date for that option.
Here’s how to start:
- Download Edits on iOS or Android
- Open the app and tap the chat icon
- Type a question
Instagram recommends opening with a question about what’s working on your account right now. Westervelt wrote that Instagram plans to keep building the assistant with creators, and the company is asking users what features they want added.
