Instagram might spin off Reels into a standalone app

Instagram’s Reels currently exists within the Instagram app itself. However, according to a recent report from The Information, it looks like the company could be planning on spinning the feature out into its own app. The report claims that this came from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who told staff about the plan to make Reels a standalone app.

If that’s true, it looks like Instagram is getting ready to take TikTok head on. TikTok and Reels are rivals. While Reels did launch much later than TikTok, it has quickly caught up. Now that TikTok faces the risk of being banned in the US, users will need to turn to another platform and Instagram could be getting ready to make that happen.

Why can’t Instagram keep Reels within Instagram itself? That’s an interesting question. Perhaps there are certain perceptions about Instagram that the company is trying to distance itself from. Perhaps they want users, both old and new, to view Reels as its own standalone platform. Also, another theory is that if Reels becomes the new TikTok, it could face regulatory scrutiny so spinning Reels off into its own standalone app could be a good thing for Instagram.

Either way, nothing has been confirmed yet, so we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, TikTok still has about a month left to come to some kind of agreement with the US government if they don’t want to risk getting banned.