Instagram, a Meta-owned social media network, is developing a new feature called “Picks” that will help users discover their shared interests. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), known reverse engineer Alessandro Pauzzi shared screenshots of the upcoming functionality, which allows people to select their favourite books, games, movies, music, and TV shows, to name a few.
Instagram then checks these and compares them with followers to see which of your friends are interested in similar things. For example, if you add a particular movie or a genre to your Picks, the feature would highlight your friends who are interested in the same thing.
The screenshots also suggest that these “Picks” will appear in the inbox Notes and will be accessible by tapping a new icon that appears at the top of the inbox section. While Instagram hasn’t shared other details about the upcoming feature, in a statement to TechCrunch, the company did confirm that Picks is currently an “internal prototype”.
#Instagram is working on Picks 👀
ℹ️ Add what you’re into and find overlap with friends who are all about it too pic.twitter.com/NXSqoGtqvf
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) August 6, 2025
Additionally, it appears that Meta-owned social media platforms are viewing Picks as a new way for users to connect with friends and followers on a more personal level, providing a means to initiate conversations about topics of interest.
“To help people connect with friends over the things they discover on Instagram, we’re going to double down on messaging, make consuming content more interactive and social, and explore new ways to connect with friends”, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a post earlier this year.
While Picks does sound like a great idea, Instagram already has a ton of features that help you connect with others, like Instagram Map, a new functionality that allows users to share their location with others, just like Snapchat Map.
Another functionality that aims to increase interactions on the platform is the Friends tab residing within the Reels section. This enables users to see reels their friends recently interacted with and even get recommendations from Blends.
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