Social media companies increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to keep people active online. A recent academic study evaluated whether automated commenting bots can genuinely encourage participation on a major microblogging platform. The results suggest that bots help posts attract attention from other users, yet they do not push people to share more content overall.
Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Virginia, and the University of Rochester examined the launch of CommentRobot, a large language model chatbot operated by Weibo, one of China’s most widely used social platforms. The study[1], published in Information Systems Research, reviewed how users reacted when the bot stepped into public conversations.
A Bot Designed to Keep Posts Alive
CommentRobot automatically writes replies on public posts that mention its username. The researchers described it as a platform-owned system “designed to automatically comment on user posts, functioning as a social actor”. It joins discussions without liking, sharing, or following accounts, focusing entirely on generating responses where users ask it to engage.
The team analyzed more than 106,000 posts written by over 64,000 Weibo users during the first full month after the bot’s introduction. To measure effects clearly, they centered their main evaluation on each user’s first interaction with the bot.
Engagement Rises When Bots Join a Thread
Posts that received one of these AI comments tended to draw more attention from other people on the platform. The study reports a rise in likes and comments triggered by those bot replies. The findings show what the authors call “the socializing value of social bots at the post level” for the individual who wrote the original content.
Bot comments appeared to encourage users’ peers to join the conversation. However, these reactions usually focused on the original post rather than interacting directly with the bot. Human engagement increased because people noticed activity happening on a post and joined in.
Quality Matters More Than Presence
Not every automated response produced the same lift. The researchers tested how bot comment quality changed outcomes and found stronger results when the comments showed relevance, social cues, or a tone that matched context. According to the authors, higher relevance and cues that reflect human-like responses act as indicators of “functional competence and social intelligence” in an AI system.
At the same time, poorer targeting reduced the potential benefits. The bot often focused on less active users. Yet active users actually gained more engagement when the bot replied to them, suggesting that platforms should refine systems to place automated interactions where human participation is already more likely to expand.
A Limit on What Bots Can Change
Although the bot boosted engagement under specific posts, the study uncovered an important limit. It found that future posting activity did not increase meaningfully after someone received a bot interaction. The team writes that the socializing effect delivers benefits “only limited to those bot-related posts,” which means original content creation stays unchanged from the broader perspective of platform activity.
In other words, a bot can spark conversation when it appears, but it does little to motivate users to produce more unrelated posts across the platform. That difference highlights how online activity often remains reactive to prompts rather than emerging from a new desire to share more.
Implications for Social Platforms
With concerns about user fatigue and social media disengagement, many companies are experimenting with automated systems that support or mimic human participation. This research clarifies the benefits and the limits of that strategy. Automated engagement can help make a post feel alive, attracting attention that might otherwise fade quietly. Yet automated systems do not replace the human motivations that generate new content.
For platforms trying to balance healthy communities with engagement goals, the evidence suggests a more careful design approach. Bots acting as supportive social participants may offer value when they align content with user needs. But engagement alone does not guarantee growth in contribution. Bots may keep the conversation moving… without giving people more reasons to speak up.
Read next:
• How MyMatrixx Is Using AI and Analytics to Modernize Medication Monitoring Through Pharmawatch[2]
• Microsoft Draws the Line on AI Erotica Amid OpenAI Rift[3]
References
- ^ The study (pubsonline.informs.org)
- ^ How MyMatrixx Is Using AI and Analytics to Modernize Medication Monitoring Through Pharmawatch (www.digitalinformationworld.com)
- ^ Microsoft Draws the Line on AI Erotica Amid OpenAI Rift (www.digitalinformationworld.com)