AI trends on Instagram, made for Reels

The clip remakes: where each started, and what Instagram had to do with it

Rumpelstiltskin began on Instagram a month before TikTok picked it up. Bulin 47 and Smalltown Boy Cats were each posted by their creators on Instagram and TikTok on the same day, minutes apart. I Wanna Love You is a TikTok original. For all four, the remakes we can count took off on TikTok, on a sound people could reuse.

1. Bulin 47↗ Rising ≈380M views · 1 person · 15s Bigger on Instagram than on TikTok, by likes. LatiNation reported on 8 Oct 2026 that Kevin Wai stopped Bulin 47 outside a restaurant in Spain with a dembow beat on a portable speaker, and Bulin 47 answered with a freestyle. Kevin Wai's reel of it went up on 2 Oct and had about 7.4M likes when we read it on 16 Oct, nearly eight times the likes on the TikTok post of the same freestyle. The first widely shared AI swap went up on TikTok on 6 Oct, and new versions keep reaching Reels. Just you, already vertical, beat included. See yourself in it
2. Rumpelstiltskin Dance↗ Rising ≈57M views · 1–2 people · 9s Born on Instagram, made famous on TikTok. It isn't an old film. @stroinaya (Tatyana Tereshchenko) and her AI course team posted the whole fake 1980s fantasy scene on Instagram on 27 Aug 2026: about 33 seconds, wide, with its own film music. A month later, on 27 Sep, the earliest TikTok edit we found set the tiptoe dance to Riff Raff and looped it, and AI recasts followed on 6–7 Oct. Yours is the nine seconds everyone copies. Go solo as the imp, or bring a friend as the maiden; it's creepy enough for a Halloween Reel. See yourself in it
3. Smalltown Boy Cats↗ Rising ≈46M views · 2 pets · 21s From an Instagram AI artist. Bellvtrix (@bellvtrix.ai) posted the two cats screaming by a red fence on Instagram on 2 Oct 2026, and the same clip on TikTok two minutes later. On 16 Oct the reel had about 1.3M likes and the TikTok post about 10.6M plays. Even the cats' routine comes from Instagram: it copies a human dance video posted there in August 2026. People soon started swapping in their own pets on the TikTok sound; one version with the poster's own two cats in a living room (8 Oct) had about 3.2M plays on 16 Oct. Two pets, vertical, 21 seconds with Bronski Beat on it. See yourself in it
4. I Wanna Love You↗ Rising ≈55M views · 1 pet · 10s The one from TikTok. @novoreel posted the white cat in a mustard corduroy suit on TikTok on 1 Oct 2026, and it had about 22M plays when we read it on 16 Oct. We haven't counted it on Instagram. It's on this page because it's made for a Reel: vertical, about ten seconds, one pet, with the cat singing the opening of Akon's 2006 song already on it. See yourself in it

Instagram and TikTok numbers for each trend, read on 16 and 18 Oct 2026

Where each clip first went up, what it had on each app when we read it, and the shape of the video you get. The first four are clip remakes; the rest are one-photo templates.

Instagram hides view counts when you aren't logged in, so the Instagram column shows likes and the TikTok column shows plays: compare likes with likes. The views on each trend card are our own estimates, and each trend page says how and when we read them.

More trends with Instagram roots you can make here

Smaller links to Instagram, each dated. The first is a clip remake; the rest are one-photo templates, three of them photos rather than video.

Do you need a prompt for the Instagram AI trend?

Not for these. A lot of what people call the Instagram AI trend is a photo edit made by pasting a prompt into an image tool: on 16 Oct 2026, Google finished "new ai trend on instagram" with "prompt", "3d model" and "new ai photo trend on instagram". Those give you a styled picture, and we don't make them.

A video remake works the other way round. The viral clip is the template, so there's nothing to describe. Your face, hair, facial hair and your own glasses come from your photo; the body, clothes, moves, camera and the clip's own sound stay as they were. With a pet, the whole animal goes in. If your preview needs a tweak, type a short change in your own words and it's made again.

How to make a trending AI video for Instagram

Choose, add a photo, check the free still, then make and post. Nothing is charged before the fourth step.

1. Choose the trend

   Tap a card above. Bulin 47 is just you, Rumpelstiltskin is you alone or you and a friend, Smalltown Boy Cats takes two pets and I Wanna Love You takes one. The templates take one photo each: Car Jump, Lion Friend and Bullet Time are you, Knight Cat is your pet, and Millionaire in 30 Days is you or your pet.

2. Add a photo

   A sharp, front-facing selfie in good light, one per person. For pets, one animal per photo with its face showing. Only upload adults who agreed to it. More in the best photo for a face swap.

3. Check the free still

   In about a minute you see yourself, or your pet, in the scene. You get up to three previews per trend, with no card needed.

4. Make the video

   100 credits ($9.90), whether it's one person, two or your pets, and every video is 1080p. We email it to you when it's ready. Pay only when it's ready; automatic refund if it fails.

5. Post it as a Reel

   Save the video and start a new Reel from your camera roll, or tap Share on your phone and pick Instagram if it's offered. The section below covers the shape, the sound and the caption.

How to post your AI video as an Instagram Reel

Your video is an ordinary file, so it posts like any clip from your camera roll. Five things decide how it looks and sounds on Reels.

• The shape. Bulin 47, Smalltown Boy Cats and I Wanna Love You are vertical (9:16), the shape of a Reel, so they fill the screen as they are. Rumpelstiltskin is wide (16:9) because the film is: @stroinaya posted it wide on Instagram, and the most-viewed recast we track is wide too. Post it uncropped. A tall crop keeps only the middle of the barn, and the maiden sits on the right in the wide shots.
• The templates' shape. Car Jump, Lion Friend, Knight Cat, Millionaire in 30 Days, Bullet Time and the other templates are vertical (9:16) and 1080p, so they fill a Reel as they are. Popstar is the exception among the new ones: it's wide, like the music video it comes from.
• The sound. Your video keeps the clip's own sound, and for three of the four that already is the trend sound: the dembow beat and freestyle, Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy", and the cat singing the opening of Akon's "I Wanna Love You". Leave those as they are.
• Templates come without a song. They carry sound made for the scene (engine and landing for Car Jump, night sounds for Lion Friend) or none at all (Millionaire in 30 Days is silent), so pick the trend's audio in Instagram's music when you edit the Reel.
• Rumpelstiltskin's sound is your call. It keeps the film's own music, which is how the original went up on Instagram. Riff Raff's "Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz" is the TikTok version: if you want it, look for it in Instagram's music when you edit the Reel, and if it's there, add it and turn the clip's own sound down.
• The caption. Copy caption gives you one line and four hashtags: the trend's name, the name with "ai", #aitrend and #fyp. Instagram said in December 2025 that it would gradually limit a Reel or post caption to five hashtags, so the four fit. #fyp is a TikTok habit; on Instagram, swap it for one about who's in it, like your cat's name.
• The timing. Each trend page shows its stage and the date we read it. On 16 Oct 2026, Bulin 47, Rumpelstiltskin and I Wanna Love You were still rising, and Smalltown Boy Cats was slowing, though new pet versions were still being posted.