Trappe Digital LLC may earn commissions from sponsored links and content. When you click and buy you also support us.
Since I have a professional account on Instagram, I was able to use the AI auto reply feature for messages. While everything with AI always seems to be in beta mode, this AI feature for sending automated messages is a total mess. And it’s seemed impossible to turn off auto reply for Instagram in this scenario.
This feature isn’t available for everyone yet, and you need a professional account. So I set it up, and it started responding to people. The responses were horrible.
Here, somebody messaged after finding me through a branded search.
AI is now disagreeing with people messaging me – even though I didn’t personally disagree with their statement. Fail.
Then, here, somebody asked me to send them a link to a podcast, and the AI promptly sent them the link to the Growgetter podcast launch kit. They ask for a podcast link, and my AI tells them to start their own. Fail.
So, needless to say, I needed to get these crazy auto-replies to stop. But how? There’s literally no setting that would allow me to do that. I could mute them and stop them momentarily in a chat I’m personally participating in. But nothing account-wide. I kept digging and trying.
Read next: How to use saved replies in Instagram to speed up communications
Turning AI auto reply for Instagram off
But how? It took me a while to figure out, but you don’t have to spend all that time looking for a setting that doesn’t exist; here’s how to do it: Head to settings, creator tools, and controls. Switch to personal account.
Of course there are some potential issues with the switch too. No in-app insights and promotions are no longer accessible.
There might be good reasons to turn these AI responses off, but of course, you should weigh those reasons against the other functionality you need from the professional account type.