Bluesky’s 2026 roadmap: new feed tools, real-time curation, and app fixes
Bluesky is refining its foundation and building real-time features. Here’s what it means for brand visibility and community engagement.
Bluesky has dropped its clearest signal yet that it’s maturing from a scrappy alt-social network into a serious contender. In a public roadmap preview, the decentralized platform laid out product priorities for 2026, including a more intelligent Discover feed, real-time features around live events, and long-awaited fixes to basic functions like drafts and video uploads.
With over 42 million users since its public debut in early 2024, Bluesky now faces the challenge of converting sign-ups into long-term users, especially as daily active usage fell 40% year-over-year as of October 2025, per Similarweb data cited by Forbes.
This article unpacks Bluesky’s 2026 plans, from product upgrades to its ecosystem strategy, and explores what all this means for marketers navigating a fractured social media landscape.
Short on time?
Here’s a table of contents for quick access:
- What’s new in Bluesky’s 2026 roadmap
- Key fixes and feature upgrades
- The big bet on real-time and live events
- Why the “Atmosphere” ecosystem matters
- What marketers should know
Patrecia Meliana
What's new in Bluesky's 2026 roadmap
Bluesky’s Head of Product, Alex Benzer, outlined a sweeping set of goals for 2026 centered around user retention, live engagement, and feed discovery.
Top priorities include:
- Improving the Discover feed with topic tagging and higher-quality recommendations
- Making “who to follow” suggestions smarter and more relevant
- Enhancing the real-time experience during sports, elections, and cultural events
- Adding app basics like drafts, support for longer videos, and easier thread creation
- Supporting interoperability across other AT Protocol-based apps (aka the “Atmosphere”)
Importantly, Bluesky is betting that its open protocol advantage, where anyone can build custom feeds or integrations, will differentiate it from walled gardens like X or Threads. Custom feeds already power trending topics on Bluesky and are now getting more first-class attention in the app's interface.
Key fixes and feature upgrades
While Bluesky has built a reputation for customization and decentralization, it still lags behind competitors on basic usability. In 2026, the company plans to change that.
Posting experience
Currently, users can’t save drafts or post videos longer than three minutes. Uploads are slow, and threads are clunky to compose. All of these issues are now on the fix list. Benzer stated that improving media handling is a must if Bluesky wants to hold onto creators and everyday users alike.
Discovery and recommendations
The Discover feed has improved, but Bluesky knows it’s still too random to drive meaningful content loops. A dedicated team will now focus on feed quality, aided by topic tags and smarter algorithms. “Who to follow” suggestions, critical for user retention, are also getting rebuilt to help new users find relevant voices faster.
The big bet on real-time and live events
One of the more ambitious parts of the roadmap is Bluesky’s plan to become a live network, a place people turn to during sports, political events, or breaking news.
Bluesky already sees usage spikes during high-profile moments like the World Series or election nights. But previously, the team was just trying to stay online. Now, they’re building tooling to curate custom feeds for live events and exploring features that make feeds feel less like just scrolling and more like hanging out.
This shift signals Bluesky’s attempt to compete with the cultural immediacy of X, but without the centralized control or content moderation headaches. The open nature of the AT Protocol allows third parties to spin up their own event-specific feeds, reducing the burden on Bluesky itself.
Why the "Atmosphere" ecosystem matters
Another major theme in the roadmap is cross-app functionality within the AT Protocol, which Bluesky calls the “Atmosphere.” The platform wants third-party apps to not just plug in, but enhance the core Bluesky experience.
A working example is the new “Live Now” integration. When a user goes live on Twitch or Streamplace, their Bluesky profile photo gets a LIVE badge that links directly to the stream, no manual updates required. According to Benzer, more integrations like this are coming soon.
This interoperability gives Bluesky a strategic edge. While Threads and X can’t easily connect with external platforms, Bluesky’s open architecture lets developers build features that extend functionality and drive multi-platform engagement.
What marketers should know
Marketers exploring alternatives to X should pay attention to Bluesky’s 2026 roadmap, not because it’s ready to replace your current strategy, but because it’s shaping up as a differentiated long-term channel for community-building and event activation.
Here are three things to watch:
1. Custom feeds open new content playbooks
Bluesky’s feed system lets marketers or communities create interest-based or event-specific destinations. For example, a sports brand could sponsor a live game feed, or a media company could curate a topic tag stream during election week.
2. Real-time curation = real-time marketing
As Bluesky leans into live content, there’s potential to treat it like a hybrid of Reddit threads and X timelines, an opportunity for real-time brand voice and community interaction during cultural moments.
3. Cross-app integrations could evolve influencer strategy
With live-streaming integrations and other apps enhancing Bluesky profiles, creators and brands may find new ways to showcase multimedia content. Keep an eye on the evolving Atmosphere for influencer and UGC collaborations.
Bluesky’s 2026 roadmap is less about chasing X or Threads and more about refining its own identity: open, community-driven, and live-friendly. For marketers, that means new tools to test, new channels to track, and a potential playground for creative content strategies once the basics are finally stable.
As the social media ecosystem continues fragmenting, Bluesky's bets on openness, interoperability, and user-owned feeds could pay off. But first, it needs to get its house in order.
