News Reporter | Song Jianan
AI is now creeping into the most vibrant corners of social life—even the words you post on Moments can be ghostwritten by a machine.
Recently, NUPIAO noticed that WeChat has quietly rolled out two AI-assisted features in Moments: “AI Assist” and “AI Comment.” The former helps generate copy suggestions for your posts, while the latter offers smart analysis and reply ideas for your friends’ updates. Both are powered by the native assistant Xiaowei.
Regarding these two features, on August 11, Tencent customer service told NUPIAO that “AI Assist” and “AI Comment” are still in a small-scale beta phase, with no separate entry point yet. Users can access the experience through the “Xiaowei” icon in the top-left corner of WeChat. If you haven’t been granted beta access, they suggest keeping WeChat updated to the latest version and waiting for future releases.
According to Tencent customer service, the Moments “AI Assist” and “AI Comment” features are extensions of WeChat’s Xiaowei smart assistant. Users can leverage these tools to aid expression in Moments comments. Xiaowei also supports creating personal mini-programs for things like workout check-ins and expense tracking, with plans to keep refining the experience moving forward.
Here’s how it works: when you enter the Moments editor, upload a photo, and jot down a rough draft, an “AI Assist” button pops up at the bottom-right corner. Tapping it jumps you straight into a Xiaowei conversation. The AI reads both the visual content of your image and your initial text, then generates copy in various styles—concise, playful, literary, and more—for you to pick from. Once you select one, it fills back into the editor. Even if you tell Xiaowei to “publish directly,” the system only leaves you on the ready-to-post screen; the final tap of the send button is still yours to make.
The companion feature, “AI Comment,” targets interactions in the comments section of your friends’ posts, and its trigger is a bit more under-the-radar. Long-press any comment on a Moments post, and a new “AI Comment” option appears in the pop-up menu. Tapping it summons Xiaowei to interpret the original comment’s meaning and serve up several reply suggestions—funny comebacks, warm pleasantries, or witty jabs. In a way, it solves the awkward social dilemma of having no idea how to respond to a friend’s comment. Like “AI Assist,” everything generated by “AI Comment” is just reference material; sending the reply still requires your manual confirmation.
Beyond the Moments scene, Xiaowei has a range of capabilities tied to the WeChat ecosystem. For instance, you can naturally operate native WeChat functions through conversation—adjusting settings, sending messages, making calls, or searching Moments. It can also conveniently pull up mini-programs for daily tasks like booking a doctor’s appointment, grabbing a coffee, or showing a boarding pass. It helps search for videos or articles, cutting down on information-hunting time, and offers creative and productivity tools like generating images or creating notes.
That said, Tencent customer service told NUPIAO that features like multi-language support and complex data analytics aren’t live on Xiaowei yet—keep an eye on future version notes for updates.
Back in June, Xiaowei first entered gray-scale testing. Users with beta access see a green robot icon in the top-left corner of their WeChat home screen and can also swipe right to summon it quickly. Mindful of user privacy and content safety, Xiaowei has multiple layers of interception for high-risk actions. Anything involving posting to Moments, mass messaging, or transfers and payments requires manual confirmation at every step.
With the new “AI Assist” and “AI Comment” features now live, public opinion is sharply divided—the core debate centers on the trade-off between social authenticity and tool convenience.
Some netizens see these features as a godsend for the socially anxious and the verbally challenged. Office workers and shutterbugs alike report that after a trip or a casual snap, they often stare at the photo, draw a blank, and spend ten-plus minutes unable to craft a decent short caption. AI’s one-click generation of multi-style copy dramatically lowers the barrier to posting on Moments, and their willingness to casually document life goes up accordingly.
On the flip side, skepticism and concern are just as loud. Cheng Lingfeng, former director of Tencent’s media business group and a seasoned industry observer, wrote on his own Moments: “WeChat just added AI-assisted Moments posts and AI comment replies. Disappointed. Helping NPCs become NPCs. Fewer real people, hollowed-out close-knit relationships. If the strongest platform for real humans won’t guard the baseline of being human, then who will?” His take has drawn considerable support across social platforms.
Other analysts argue that WeChat’s strategy of deploying Xiaowei across Moments, official accounts, and group chats is essentially embedding AI into users’ daily high-frequency actions—mainstreaming large models for the masses while closing Tencent’s gap in C-end generative AI scenarios, and bridging the disconnect between third-party AI tools and the WeChat ecosystem.
Still, AI can solve the awkwardness of poor phrasing, but it can’t replicate the genuine emotions and life insights that are uniquely yours. The flip side of convenient expression is the creeping worry of homogenized social content and templated personal voice.
As of now, Tencent has only confirmed that the features are in gray-scale testing, with no concrete timeline for a full rollout. Whether Xiaowei’s Moments AI features will adjust copy-generation rules, add AI content labels, or cap daily generation counts will all depend on continuous iteration based on beta user feedback.
For the average user, “AI Assist” and “AI Comment” are just optional aids—what ultimately gives your Moments its warmth is still your own real-life experiences.
