Adam Mosseri and Tessa Lyons introduced a widescreen format for longer videos, with short Reels built to point viewers toward the full thing.
2026-10-26 · by Moe Ameen
On October 26, 2026, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and VP of product Tessa Lyons introduced "Features," a new format for long-form, horizontal video — Instagram's clearest move yet beyond the short, vertical Reels it has built around for years. In a roughly six-minute video, the pair framed Features as giving creators "more room to tell their stories with the communities they've already built here." Mosseri, who has previously said he was against doing long-form video on Instagram, called it an early test the company is still working to get right.
The format is widescreen rather than vertical, and the test is running with longer length limits than Reels allow — reporting points to videos as long as 90 minutes, though Instagram is trying several limits rather than committing to a final spec. Instagram first tried the format with creators in Brazil and is now expanding to a test in the US, with The Hollywood Reporter reporting plans to reach tens of thousands of US creators. There is no announced timeline for a wider rollout.
Crucially, Instagram is positioning Features as symbiotic with Reels, not a replacement. Short Reels — reportedly up to eight per long video — are meant to act as trailers that pull viewers toward the full-length piece, and Lyons said "Reels is still going to be a core part of Instagram." The push is tied to Instagram's living-room ambitions: the company has been building a TV experience and sees longer, widescreen video as what that screen needs.
One thing is explicitly unresolved: money. Unlike YouTube, Features has no ad-revenue-share program at launch. Instagram said it is working on "a few different deals" with early creators and exploring future earning options from brands, fans, and the platform itself, but it has not published payout terms. Treat length caps, eligibility, and monetization as moving targets until Instagram confirms them.
Features is built around one mechanic: a single long video, and up to eight short Reels cut from it to pull viewers in. That is a repurposing loop by design — and it is exactly the loop that strands most creators, because slicing a 90-minute piece into eight punchy vertical trailers by hand is a day of editing per upload. Kompozy automates that half directly. Point its Clipped Shorts at your long-form video and it cuts the high-signal moments into vertical, auto-captioned shorts; one source becomes the batch of Reels Features wants feeding it, without a manual timeline.
The other half is that the long video and its clips should not live only on Instagram. Kompozy publishes and schedules the whole set across the eight social platforms plus blog and email in one pass — the full-length piece goes to Instagram and YouTube where long-form earns, the vertical cuts fan out to Reels, TikTok, and Shorts as the trailers, and a blog recap or newsletter carries the same content to owned channels. If you would rather generate net-new long-form instead of filming it, Persona HeyGen produces longer avatar-led video with a consistent voice and face, which Clipped Shorts then slices the same way. You bring one long piece; the engine produces the clips Features runs on and ships them everywhere the audience is.
Features is a new Instagram format for long-form, horizontal (widescreen) video, introduced on October 26, 2026 as the platform's move beyond short vertical Reels. It supports much longer videos than Reels — reporting cites length limits up to 90 minutes, though Instagram is testing several limits. It is an early test, not a finished, broadly available product.
No. Instagram says Features is meant to be symbiotic with Reels. Short Reels — reportedly up to eight per long video — act as trailers that point viewers toward the full-length piece, and Tessa Lyons said "Reels is still going to be a core part of Instagram." Reels remains the discovery surface; Features is the longer destination.
Not through an ad-revenue share. Unlike YouTube, Features launched with no revenue-sharing program. Instagram said it is working on direct deals with a few early creators and exploring future earning options from brands, fans, and the platform, but it has not published payout terms. For now the payoff is reach and audience, not payouts.
Features wants up to eight short Reels cut from each long video to drive discovery. Kompozy's Clipped Shorts automates that: point it at a long-form video and it cuts the strongest moments into vertical, auto-captioned shorts, then schedules and publishes the long piece and its clips across nine platforms — so one source becomes the full video plus the Reels that feed it.