AI + communityEarlier this month, Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu held an AI developer competition, positioning itself as both a feedback engine for product iteration and a launchpad for promotion. For AI companies, social media isn’t just a distribution channel – it’s becoming a strategic layer for both inspiration and retention. Chinese news outlet Jiemian cites an industry insider who compared the current wave of AI tools to early mobile-era utility apps. It remains to be seen whether AI-native social products will meaningfully challenge existing social media such as Xiaohongshu or China’s X-like microblogging platformWeibo. If today’s AI tools want to evolve beyond one-off queries and productivity hacks, they’ll need the emotional hooks, peer sharing, and ambient discovery that social media excels at.