Instagram’s new dynamic profile photo flips between your picture and avatar

Instagram announced today that it’s introducing a new dynamic profile photo feature that lets users showcase both their profile photo and their avatar. Prior to this update, you had to choose between displaying a profile picture or your avatar on your profile. Now, you can flip between the two.

“Now you can add your avatar to the other side of your pic — and people who visit your profile can flip between the two,” the Meta-owned company said in a tweet.

To add an avatar to the other side of your profile picture, you need to navigate to the “Edit Profile” button. After adding the avatar, your profile picture will automatically flip over to your avatar when people visit your profile.

The social media network notes that this update is the first time that it’s introducing avatar animation, as your avatar will wave when it is displayed.

Meta brought avatars to Instagram nearly a year ago, and is now working to make them more prominent within the app with the addition of the dynamic profile photo feature. The company initially launched avatars in 2020 as a way to compete with Snap’s Bitmoji and has been continuously updating them since across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger.

The launch of the new dynamic profile photo feature comes a few days after Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the social network will look to make photos more of a focus in 2023. In a weekly Q&A with users, Mosseri admitted that Instagram showed too many videos and not enough photos last year. He also reassured users that photos will always be important for the platform.