You would think that the CEO of a giant company, leading a strategic marketing move, should have a deep understanding of the competitive landscape in which he operates. Well, you would think. To mark the year 2026, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri gave an interview and proved that he is chasing AI trends like the lowliest of small-time marketers on his own platform, instead of understanding what his competitor-TikTok-has that he doesn't.
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In a conversation where Mosseri reviewed Instagram's challenges for 2026, he said, among other things, that "another significant change is that today, authenticity can be infinitely replicated."
It’s impossible to hear this sentence without thinking of the meme from "The Princess Bride": "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means." In this case, the word Mosseri doesn't understand is "authenticity."
The very definition of "authenticity" is something real and original. In everyday life, we use it to describe something or someone whose primary merit is that they are not an imitation of something else. The moment you "replicate" authenticity, you’ve lost it. Authenticity is the reason Picasso’s painting, "The Women of Algiers," sold for $179.4 million, while a poster of that same painting on Amazon sells for $17.
But Mosseri’s problem isn’t just that he doesn't understand what "authenticity" means, or how to use the word in a sentence. The man who is supposed to grow Instagram doesn't understand the massive competitive advantage of the platform that threatens him-TikTok. TikTok's competitive advantage among its target audience-young people-is the non-replicable authenticity of the content its users upload.
The "What's Next 2025" report notes that 50% of TikTok users look for content that reflects real life. Spontaneous content, the report says, receives three times more engagement than polished content.
But at Meta, as always with Meta, they always look for the answer in the algorithm, and never in the human spark. And until Mosseri understands this, TikTok will continue to market more successfully to the youth segment.
(On the other hand, we hope Mosseri doesn't read this piece, because we're still uploading our authentic columns to Instagram and Facebook. We love you, Mosseri, we really do).
