WeChat's 16 AI Touchpoints Turn the Super-App Into an Ambient Agent

Today I saw a major WeChat update in the People's Daily and went to check other sources.

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I didn't take this WeChat update too seriously at first.

At first glance, isn't it just an AI summary added to Official Accounts, AI comments added to Moments, and AI processing added below chat images?

But when I looked at this batch of features together again, I suddenly felt that this might be bigger than I imagined.

Because this time, WeChat didn't just make another AI chat box. It is stuffing AI, entry point by entry point, directly into the places we use every day.

It is currently in grayscale testing (open to a small random group of people), and you may not have been grayscaled yet. I, Lao Jin, haven't been grayscaled either, so the images below are all taken from the internet.

Tencent has officially confirmed in its Q2 financial report that Xiao Wei is WeChat's native AI agent, driven by the custom model WeLM.

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01 AI Starts Reading Official Accounts for Readers First

The most direct impact on me this time is actually the Official Account AI summary.

On the Official Account message page, an "AI Summary" has appeared on the far left of "Frequently Read Accounts." Tap it, and Xiao Wei will centrally organize the updates from the Official Accounts you frequently read, first telling you roughly what each article is about.

​ Image source: People's Daily

At the bottom of the detail page for some Official Account articles, an "AI Summary" has also appeared. If the article is too long and you don't want to read it, tap it first, and the key points come out directly.

​ Image source: People's Daily

For readers, this is definitely great. Following dozens of Official Accounts, you don't need to open them one by one; just scan the summaries first, then decide what to read.

But for those of us who write Official Accounts, the pressure is also here.

Previously, an article first competed for clicks with its title and cover image. In the future, it might also have to be read by AI first. Once the AI summarizes and finds the whole article just repeats one point, the reader might not even click on it.

So writing Official Accounts in the future isn't just about writing for people to read; it also has to withstand AI summarization.

Information needs to be denser, viewpoints need to be clearer, and there must be some things AI can't summarize away, like your experiences, your judgments, and new things not found elsewhere.

AI can distill facts for readers, but it cannot replace the truly valuable part of an author.

02 Moments May Enter the Era of AI Mutual Commenting

The second change is AI comments in Moments.

Long-press the text of a friend's Moments post, and now "AI Comment" may appear. Xiao Wei will first understand what the other person is saying, then generate several different styles of comments for you.

​ Image source: People's Daily

At the same time, the Moments posting page is also testing "AI Help Write." After you upload an image, Xiao Wei can first understand what is in the picture, then write several different styles of copy for you. Once selected, the text is directly backfilled into the posting page, though ultimately the user must confirm and post it themselves.

​ Image source: Zhidongxi

​ Image source: Zhidongxi

Honestly, this feature is definitely quite useful, and also a bit darkly humorous.

In the future, the Moments post you send is written by AI looking at a picture, and the comment I give you is also written by AI after reading it. The only action two people personally complete is each tapping "send."

But from another perspective, when everyone's words can be made smooth and beautiful by AI, the sentence that truly carries a personal touch will become increasingly valuable.

AI can help you smooth out your words, but it cannot replace why you wanted to post this Moments in the first place.

03 WeChat Starts Swallowing a Bunch of Small Tools Back

The third change is the newly added "AI Processing" below chat images.

After receiving an image, you no longer need to save it to your album first, then switch to another app. You can directly beautify the image, extract information, or modify content within WeChat.

​ Image source: People's Daily

"Take Photo for AI" has also been added to the Scan feature. When you encounter an unfamiliar product, foreign packaging, or something you don't know what it is, take a photo, and Xiao Wei can identify, translate, extract text, summarize content, and allow follow-up questions.

​ Image source: People's Daily

​ Image source: Zhidongxi

"Commands" have also appeared in the chat input box. You can directly say "Help me phrase this more tactfully" or "Translate into English, not too formal." After the AI understands the request, it generates a message more suitable for the current chat context.

​ Image source: People's Daily

Previously, to do these things, you had to save the image, switch apps, upload content, explain your needs, and then copy the result back to WeChat.

Now WeChat wants to cut out all these intermediate steps.

This is where Xiao Wei is truly powerful. It may not necessarily be the first to do every single capability, but it stands right where things happen, and it knows what you are currently looking at, preparing to send, and how you want to reply.

The most troublesome part of AI, often, isn't a lack of capability, but that using it is too much hassle.

What WeChat is doing now is making this no longer a hassle.

04 What WeChat Really Wants to Do Might Not Be the Next Doubao

Many people's first reaction upon seeing this might be: Can Xiao Wei beat Doubao, Yuanbao, or ChatGPT?

I, Lao Jin, think this question might be asked backwards.

WeChat doesn't even need you to develop the habit of "opening Xiao Wei specifically every day." It just needs to place an AI button next to the actions you were already going to take, and it has already won more than half the battle.

In the past, AI products thought about how to pull users into their own App.

WeChat thinks about how to make users never need to leave.

Articles are summarized right here, Moments are written right here, images are edited right here, messages are replied to right here. You don't even need to first remember "I want to use AI"; it is already waiting in that spot.

In the past, we always felt that AI popularization relied on more people learning prompts, learning models, and learning various tools.

But the path WeChat is taking is not about making people learn AI.

It's about making AI learn to stand within people's lives.

When these entry points truly roll out, many people may never have downloaded an AI app, nor seriously learned a single prompt.

Yet every day, as they read articles, post Moments, reply to messages, and identify things, they are already using AI.

AI no longer waits for you to find it.

It is starting to grow into life itself.

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