WeChat is ramping up efforts to introduce AI features, but is it losing its human touch?

Recently, WeChat has launched the "AI Writing Assistant" and "AI Comment Suggestion" features in a gray-scale test. When posting on Moments, the AI can generate copy based on your photos and draft; if you do not know how to reply to a friend's comment, the AI can also provide several response suggestions. Both features are still in small-scale testing at present, and the final release and reply operations still require manual confirmation from users.

Controversy quickly emerged after the news was released.

Some people worry that the "sense of real human presence" on Moments is getting weaker and weaker. If even the copywriting and comment replies that originally belong to personal expression are completed by machines, the sense of authenticity that is most important in acquaintance social interactions may also be diluted.

1

The AI-driven Era Leaves WeChat No Exception

Such concerns are very understandable. But from the perspective of business and product evolution, adding AI capabilities to WeChat is almost an inevitable event. Because over the past year, AI has changed users' basic expectations for software at a lightning-fast speed.

The whole era is being reshaped by AI, and WeChat cannot stay out of this trend.

According to CNNIC data, as of June 2025, the number of generative AI users in China reached 515 million, doubling within half a year. By May 2026, the monthly active users of AI-native apps counted by QuestMobile had approached 500 million. AI is gradually moving from being a novel tool for a small number of people to becoming part of the public's daily software usage habits.

For a long time, when we use a software, we first need to understand the software: find the entry, click the menu, fill in information, switch pages, and then complete the task. After the emergence of large language models, more and more software is beginning to understand users instead. By inputting a sentence in natural language, operations such as search, writing, translation, sorting and execution can be carried out smoothly. Especially for input method software, any input method that does not have AI functions now will be regarded as outdated.

When more and more software has such capabilities, AI is no longer just a new feature. It is more like the touch screen and camera in the mobile Internet era, and has gradually become the basic configuration of software.

This change will generate a very hidden pressure.

Even if WeChat does not make any changes, its original functions will not disappear, but users have already changed. After getting used to AI summarizing articles, recognizing images, modifying texts and searching for information, when users return to a software environment that relies entirely on menus and clicks, even a previously smooth product may gradually appear cumbersome.

However, product experience is always relative. After the entire Internet environment is deeply integrated with AI, the absence of AI itself may become an experience gap.

The changes of WeChat in recent months have become more and more frequent. In June, the native AI assistant "Xiaowei" was tested on a small scale, which can provide services by combining articles, videos, chat pages and some mini-programs in WeChat; in July, the AI typesetting optimization for official accounts was launched; in August, AI further expanded its presence to Moments.

The truly important changes have taken place in the deeper layer of the product structure. In 2026, WeChat promoted mini-programs to access the AI development mode, allowing developers to encapsulate functions such as query, reservation and order placement into Skills, so that AI can call them directly through natural language. The public development cases of Tencent Cloud have covered scenarios such as to-do items, store queuing and coffee ordering.

2

AI is Remaking WeChat

Since the birth of mini-programs, the most basic level has always been the page: users need to find the mini-program first, and then enter the page to find the function. After the introduction of AI, mini-programs have begun to have another form — becoming a capability that can be called by machines. In other words, AI has become a more macroscopic and powerful operating system, with greater permissions and capabilities than mini-programs.

The change seems small, but its business significance is completely different.

Since the birth of the mobile Internet, the main problem it solves is "putting services into mobile phones", so apps were born on mobile phones; WeChat mini-programs further realized the concept of "leave after use", reducing the cost of downloading and installing apps. In the Agent era, we have taken a further step forward: users may not even need to know which mini-program the service is hidden in.

Users only need to express their needs, and AI is responsible for identifying the intention and scheduling services. The complex product structure accumulated by WeChat thus ushers in an opportunity to become simple again.

Today's WeChat is huge and complex: official accounts carry graphic content, video accounts circulate short videos, mini-programs provide services, WeChat Pay closes the transaction loop, and WeChat Work connects the ecological partners. What maintains the operation of this huge ecosystem are traditional mechanisms such as entrances, search, QR codes and links.

And AI brings a brand new solution — in the past, WeChat organized "pages"; in the future, AI will organize "capabilities". WeChat has millions of mini-programs, and these mini-programs can become millions of Skills that AI Agents can call. In other words, WeChat is trying to translate the service ecosystem it has accumulated for more than ten years into capabilities that machines can understand and call.

Business competition will also change accordingly. After AI is integrated into WeChat, a new role is added to traffic distribution. When a user puts forward a demand, AI needs to decide which mini-program, which merchant and which service to call. Each call itself is a traffic distribution action.

This means that developers and merchants not only need to compete for users, but also compete for the choice of AI. Whether the service is clear, whether the interface is standard, and whether the performance is stable may all affect which service the AI finally calls. In the future WeChat ecosystem, a new keyword may be added to traffic competition: the right to be called by machines.

WeChat launched the "AI Application and Online Tool Mini-Program Growth Plan" this year, providing AI mini-programs with support including cloud development, AI computing power, data analysis, traffic and commercialization, which also shows that WeChat has gradually expanded the supply of AI applications. This change may even redefine WeChat's most important moat that it has adhered to for a long time.

In the AI era, models themselves are becoming more and more accessible. The truly scarce resources are gradually located outside the models: real human users, real human relationships, real human content, real human services, as well as the account and payment capabilities required to perform tasks. These are exactly the areas where WeChat has accumulated the deepest advantages over the past decade.

Many AI assistants today can tell users "what to buy", "where to go" and "what to do", but when it comes to the actual execution link, users still need to open another separate app.

WeChat is naturally the most perfect test field for AI implementation. Search, services and payment are already in a closed loop. Once AI connects all these links, WeChat will directly evolve from a social software to a super assistant that "can help you get things done".

WeChat Work is also advancing in a similar direction. The AI assistant "Dayuan" that is in internal test has been able to combine group chats, documents, meetings and schedules to directly mobilize the capabilities in the system.

WeChat is rooted in daily life, and WeChat Work is deeply cultivated in work scenarios — the evolution direction of AI is becoming clearer: it is stepping out of the small dialog box and becoming a super capable assistant that can really get things done.

The "AI Writing Assistant" for Moments, viewed against this background, is just a very small entry. The real problem WeChat is facing is no longer whether to add several AI buttons, but how to redesign software in the AI era.

3

Re-understanding "Restraint"

Of course, the controversy will not disappear.

The biggest difference between WeChat and ordinary tool software is that WeChat carries a large number of vivid interpersonal relationships. AI can improve the efficiency of expression, but it may also reduce the cost of expression itself; it can help reply to friends, but it may also make social interactions more and more template-based.

Therefore, the real difficulty of WeChat AI lies precisely in the boundary. AI can play a more active role in querying materials, summarizing articles and searching for services; for operations such as sending messages, public expression and transfer payment, the final confirmation right should be reserved for humans. WeChat currently still sets manual confirmation for high-risk operations such as Moments posting, group messaging and money transfer, which also reflects the prudence at the product level.

WeChat has always been famous for its "restraint". After entering the AI era, the object of restraint is changing. In the past, it was necessary to restrain the addition of unnecessary functions; in the future, it is also necessary to restrain the excessive intervention of intelligence.

But restraint does not mean standing still.

The entire software world is undergoing a round of AI transformation. Users' interaction habits, developers' production methods, and merchants' customer acquisition methods are all changing. If WeChat stays in the previous generation of interaction methods for a long time, the greater risk is that it will gradually drift away from new user habits.

QuestMobile data shows that as of May 2026, the monthly active users of domestic AI application plugins have reached 644 million, and the monthly active users of mobile phone manufacturers' AI applications have reached 755 million. AI has become a basic capability inside software, just like search and payment. Users do not necessarily need to open a dedicated AI application, but they will get more and more used to calling AI at any time in the process of using other software.

WeChat is also on this path.

As of the first quarter of 2026, the combined monthly active users of WeChat and WeChat outside China have exceeded 1.4 billion. For such a national-level application, the changes brought by AI are far more than adding several new features. What is more important is that AI will reshape the way more than one billion users use WeChat.

At the beginning, WeChat solved the problem of connecting people with each other; later, it continuously expanded to content, commodities and services. After AI is introduced, a new connection method is added: the machine understands the user's needs, and then calls the content, merchants and services that already exist in the WeChat ecosystem.

If this step is successfully implemented, what WeChat gets will not just be a smarter Moments, nor just a "Xiaowei" assistant. WeChat may get another chance to redefine the entrance of the Internet.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Xiutai", written by Shi Can, and is published with authorization from 36Kr.