You are right the interaction on Steem is lagging.  I do believe that communities will do a great bit to replace that.

As for AI, I will state that it depends upon the task at hand.  AI is fabulous at those repetitive tasks which do not require a lot of creativity.  For now AI is lagging in that area although it could change soon.

I dont have a link but Microsoft created an AI program that is designed to leave comments on social media.  It reads the post and then formulates a pertinent reply.

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