Tips from HubSpot’s global head of brand marketing

For anyone struggling with using AI in Instagram marketing, now is definitely the time to learn. Nearly half of the marketers we surveyed for our 2025 State of AI Marketing report said they’re already using AI for social media, with 49% using it for text-based social content and 47% for video/audio-based content.

HubSpot’s own social media team is leveraging AI to create more engaging, authentic, and on-trend content fast. I did some digging on the ways brands are using AI on Instagram and chatted with HubSpot’s Global Head of Brand Marketing to bring you the AI examples, tips, and tools you need to succeed on Instagram.

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Examples of How Brands Are Using AI on Instagram

1. Generating Instagram Captions

Coming up with captions is often the bane of a social media marketer’s existence. Thanks to generative AI, this tedious task can be much faster. I personally like to start with a draft I’ve written and then ask ChatGPT to help me refine it by prompting it with something like, “Improve this. Make it shorter, punchier.”

I recommend revising the output. In fact, our State of AI Marketing research found that only 7% of marketers do not edit the AI outputs. More than half (56%) significantly revise or rewrite the outputs.

Here’s an example of the iterative process of using AI to generate Instagram captions, as demonstrated by Melissa Lunt of Superhero Design. She starts with this Claude prompt.

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And after some re-prompting and refining, she ends up with this:

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2. Repurposing Blog Content into Instagram Posts

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Every marketer knows the power of repurposing content. By doing this, one piece of content can take on many lives, expanding its reach.

And thanks to AI, you can do this faster than ever. Using Content Remix by HubSpot, you can take a landing page or blog post and repurpose it into multiple marketing assets, including an Instagram post, in just a few clicks.

3. Hopping onto AI-generated Trends Like ChatGPT’s Action Figure Trend

By now, who hasn’t seen the fun AI-generated action figures all over Instagram and LinkedIn? Here’s an example from when HubSpot hopped on the trend:

AI can certainly help you stay on top of trends — but as this action figure fad shows, sometimes AI is the trend. And that can be a fun way to use AI on Instagram.

4. Playing with AI to Extend Backgrounds

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Gymshark used AI to extend the backgrounds of these epic photos, garnering nearly 52k likes on a single post. And if you’re curious, I asked ChatGPT what tool Gymshark used to do this, and it told me it was Photoshop’s “Generative Fill.”

I can see how this tool would be useful in taking an image you already like and fine-tuning it. For example, if a subject got cut off or if the image dimensions don’t fill the frame as is, you could use Photoshop to make the photo Instagram ready.

5. Creating AI Influencers

I admit, watching AI influencers on Instagram is still a little too uncanny valley for me. But for many brands, it’s driving engagement and sales. Just look at Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza (or Magalu)’s AI-powered persona, Lu.

Dubbed “the most followed virtual influencer in the world” by Virtual Humans, Lu do Magalu has 8 million followers on Instagram alone.

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She’s powered by Google’s Vertex AI, which created “Lu’s Brain” to help the brand persona make personalized product suggestions for its online shoppers.

Pro tip: Use AI influencers with caution. A 2025 Northeastern University study found that, when things go wrong, AI influencers are more likely to hurt brand trust than human influencers. That’s because consumers see AI as having less agency, and therefore, less responsibility for advertising a faulty product to consumers — meaning consumers redirect the blame to the brand that was managing the AI.

The takeaway? The study authors conclude: “Organisations must recognise their accountability for the actions of AI-powered VIs [virtual assistants], as these directly affect brand trust. Selecting VIs should involve not only their ability to attract followers but also a careful evaluation of potential risks to brand reputation.”

6. Using AI Analytics to Drive Social Media Strategy

“Data-driven social media strategy” takes on a new life when you apply AI analytics to your Instagram marketing, allowing you to optimize posts based on past post performance and your audience’s preferences and data.

“AI helps us uncover unique insights about glasses wearers (even ones we might not have experienced ourselves),” says Or Zinger, VP of Brand Marketing at GlassesUSA.com.

GlassesUSA.com used Sprout Social’s AI to analyze past successful posts and come up with the POV format and captions for this Reel. The video got more than 367,000 views — 90% of which came from non-followers.

Tips for Using AI in Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

1. Constantly experiment with and refine your AI workflows.

“The biggest mistake I see brands make is dumping their entire brand guidelines into AI and expecting magic,” says Amy Marino, HubSpot’s Global Head of Brand Marketing. “That’s like giving an intern a 200-page employee handbook and expecting them to embody your culture on day one.”

Just like you wouldn’t throw a new hire into their role without sufficient onboarding, don’t expect your AI workflow to work perfectly the first time. It will require constant experimentation and refinement before you realize maximum productivity and quality gains.

So, where to begin? Marino offers guidance: “Get AI started on the boring stuff nobody wants to do anyway. That’s where AI shines, and you can get some quick wins.”

She adds, “The most powerful part isn’t the tools themselves, but how you create a system or principles for evaluating and refining outputs. Anyone can use AI to create a bunch of mediocre content, but the competitive advantage comes from how masterfully you push and refine what the AI gives you.”

2. Leave the humor to the humans.

“Let AI do the 80% that’s predictable, and save the 20% that makes people stop scrolling for human creativity,” says Marino.

“We’ve learned that AI is not the best at humor or cultural references that feel current and authentic. We use AI to generate structure, but our team adds the cultural touchpoints and personality that make content feel of the moment.”

For example, check out this hilarious Instagram video from the official HubSpot account. Marino’s team used AI to assist with the script, but humans brought the humor.

3. Whip up some “prompt recipes” you can reuse.

Streamlining your AI Instagram workflows means creating reusable prompts that you’ve seen consistent success with. That’s what Marino’s team does to save time.

“Instead of chasing every new AI release, we’ve invested in creating (and updating) our prompt recipes. These are specific instructions that consistently deliver good results for different content types,” Marino says.

“My personal favorite direction: ‘Write this for someone who actually uses Instagram, not for a marketer who studied it in college.’ That push transforms the output from corporate-speak to something a human might actually say.”

4. Be sure to label AI-generated Instagram video/audio that is “realistic,” in accordance with Meta’s terms.

If you use AI to generate video or audio that looks or sounds realistic, you need to label it using Instagram’s “AI info” feature. This requires simply toggling on the “Add AI label” when you post a video.

Here is the exact wording from the Instagram Help Center:

“Meta requires you to label content you share that has photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that has been digitally generated or altered, including with AI. This means that if a digital creation or AI tool was used to create or modify this kind of content, you must label the content before you share it.”

It goes on to say that if you fail to do so, “there may be penalties,” but it does not specify what those penalties are. This is not required for AI-generated photos; it is only required for video and audio.

5. Understand your audience’s preferences for AI- versus human-created content

As generative AI becomes more mainstream, consumers might not care much about whether something was created with AI. But what are their preferences right now?

Well, in at least three studies, researchers found that most participants preferred AI-generated content — when they didn’t know it was created by a machine.

• In a 2023 MIT study, when participants knew how work was created, they showed a positive bias toward human-created content, but when they weren’t told, they preferred the AI-generated content.
• A 2024 Semrush survey of over 700 U.S. consumers pitted generative AI content against human-written content, and six out of six times, AI won.
• And in April 2024, Bynder published results of its survey of 2,000 UK and U.S. participants, 56% of whom preferred the AI-generated version of an article over the human-written one when they didn’t know which was which.

So, just keep this in mind as you weave AI more into your Instagram strategy. Check in with your audience. A more tech-savvy consumer, for example, may not mind if you use AI and may not be interested in the details of how you used it. But other audiences might feel differently.

Best AI Tools for Instagram Marketing

1. Breeze Social Media Agent by HubSpot

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Best for: Busy social media teams that want to leverage AI to make data-driven decisions about their Instagram strategy

Use Breeze social media agent by HubSpot to make AI-powered, data-driven posting decisions. Breeze factors in your past post performance, business details, brand voice, audience, and more to generate social media posts in a flash.

2. CapCut AI Video Editor

Best for: Newbie to advanced video editors who want to create viral-worthy Instagram Reels

As someone who’s used both FinalCut Pro and Camtasia (the latter for about 10 years), I was floored by how intuitive CapCut is as a video editor for short social media videos. I’m never going back.

Whenever I import a video and drag it to my timeline, CapCut can automatically caption it using AI. It’s accurate for 95% of the words, so I only have to do some light corrections, substantially speeding up my content production.

3. Captions AI Video Editor

Best for: Creating viral-worthy Instagram Reels in seconds using AI

I downloaded the Captions mobile app on a whim when I got an ad for it while scrolling Facebook (yes, I’m a sucker for social media ads). And you know what? I was pleasantly surprised by the result. The output would require minor tweaks from my end for a polished video. To be clear, I still preferred my manually edited video, but Captions would be a great option to scale video creation but still have it feel professionally edited.

4. Canva’s Magic Studio

Best for: Designing eye-catching graphics for your Story or posts

I have been using Canva since 2016, and it’s incredibly easy for me as a marketer to create visual assets for social media. I rely heavily on its one-click background remover when I’m creating blog graphics. Marino’s team uses Magic Studio for Instagram visuals.

Magic Studio can help you resize and repurpose existing assets, generate images and videos, and turn a prompt into an eye-catching graphic.

5. ChatGPT or Claude

Best for: Generating and refining captions and scripts

I’ve used ChatGPT and Claude to help me refine my video scripts for 60-second social media videos. It’s great at taking my wordy scripts and making them more concise.

Here’s an example prompt I used for my most recent social media video:

“You are a viral YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels content creator. Critique this script. How can I make it stronger and more engaging?”

I used Claude, too, because I like seeing what each AI tool brings to the table, and then combining what’s useful from both outputs.

Start using AI to up your Instagram game.

Now, the last thing I want you to do is feel overwhelmed by all the AI tools out there and never get started on anything. Pick just one tool from the above list and start experimenting today.

As Marino pointed out, it’s all about refining the outputs. Don’t expect gold from the first thing ChatGPT generates. But once you master prompting and refinement, you’ll unlock the true power of using AI for your Instagram strategy.

This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.