Instagram gains text-to-speech, ensures Reels all sound like Siri

Instagram logo on phone (Image credit: Joe Maring / iMore)

What you need to know

Instagram has gained text-to-speech support for Reels.
TikTok is full of videos with a robot voice talking and now Instagram can be, too.

Photo and video sharing service Instagram has added support for text-to-speech to its Reels feature, mimicking a similar feature that is already popular on TikTok.

TikTok is already full to the gills with videos that don't have real people speaking. Instead, people type text into their phone and have it read it back over the video. There result is a video that seems like Siri's talking and it's a real love or hate type of thing. Instagram's now on board, so expect Reels to sound like TikToks soon enough.

Instagram made the announcement via a post of its own.

A photo posted by on

Instagram has also added voice effects for those who do want to do their own talking. The social network says it will help people take their Reels "to the next level," by modifying their voices and.or audio. We'll have to wait and see how creators make use of this new feature before passing judgment.

Instagram is already the best iPhone app for sharing photos, but it's keen to ensure it's also the best place to share short videos, too. That place right now is TikTok, but new features and a new focus on moving pictures instead of still ones could see Meta's Instagram make up some ground.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.