In a decisive move that underscores the evolving priorities of Big Tech, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on December 1, 2025, that most U.S.-based employees with assigned desks must return to the office five days a week beginning February 2, 2026.
This marks the strictest return-to-office (RTO) policy yet from a major Meta division and represents a sharp departure from the remote-friendly ethos championed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in May 2020, when he declared the company would become "the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale."
The directive, outlined in an internal memo titled "Building a Winning Culture in 2026," applies primarily to hybrid workers in Instagram's U.S. offices and coincides with the team's relocation to a new building on Meta's Menlo Park campus to ensure everyone has a dedicated desk.
Exceptions include fully remote employees, whose status remains unchanged, and New York-based staff, who will delay full implementation until space constraints are resolved. Bay Area employees facing longer commutes can request transfers to Meta's San Francisco office, and Mosseri acknowledged flexibility for occasional remote days when genuinely needed.
Mosseri opened the memo by emphasizing that teams are "more creative and collaborative when we are together in-person," a belief he said he held pre-COVID and continues to observe in offices with strong on-site cultures, such as Instagram's New York location.
He framed the change as essential for Instagram to remain nimble amid intensifying competition, particularly as the platform seeks to differentiate itself by leaning harder into creativity while positioning sister app Threads as a hub for perspectives and discourse. Recent metrics highlight the stakes: video watch time on Instagram has grown 30% year-over-year, underscoring strong user engagement but also the need for rapid innovation.
Accompanying the RTO mandate are several operational overhauls designed to reduce bureaucracy and refocus effort on product-building. Every six months, all recurring meetings will be automatically canceled, with only those deemed "absolutely necessary" reinstated - a bold reset intended to eliminate meeting bloat.
One-on-one check-ins will default to biweekly rather than weekly, employees are encouraged to decline invitations that overlap with protected focus blocks, and internal reviews should prioritize live product prototypes over lengthy slide decks or strategy documents. "I want most of your time focused on building great products, not preparing for meetings," Mosseri wrote.
This Instagram-specific policy goes further than Meta's company-wide hybrid requirement of three in-office days per week, introduced in 2023 for Facebook, WhatsApp, and other units. It aligns Instagram more closely with Amazon's full five-day mandate, which took effect in January 2025, while surpassing the three-day policies at companies like Google, Microsoft (phasing in three days starting February 2026), and Apple.
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The announcement arrives as Big Tech broadly reevaluates post-pandemic remote work experiments. What seemed revolutionary in 2020 - when widespread Zoom collaboration promised sustained productivity - has increasingly given way to concerns that serendipitous interactions, mentorship, and cultural cohesion suffer without physical presence. Mosseri's candid warning that " "2026 is going to be tough, as was 2025" reflects ongoing pressures from rivals like TikTok and YouTube, as well as the need to foster the bold, craft-driven environment he believes will propel Instagram forward.
While the periodic meeting purge aims to strip away unproductive routine, it raises questions about whether repeatedly rebuilding habits from scratch truly streamlines work or simply trades one form of overhead for another. For now, Instagram's move serves as a bellwether: even as tools like video calls have matured, many leaders remain convinced that true creativity and speed still thrive best when people share the same physical space. The great remote-work retreat continues.
Author: Slava Vasipenok
Founder and CEO of QUASA (quasa.io) — the world's first remote work platform with payments in cryptocurrency.
Innovative entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in IT, fintech, and blockchain. Specializes in decentralized solutions for freelancing, helping to overcome the barriers of traditional finance, especially in developing regions.
