How to make the assistant write the first message?

[simpel]

Hello!

I'm sure this is obvious. How can I make the assistant start the conversation with the user? I'm using the https://chat.vercel.ai/ codebase and I just want the assistant to start the conversation with the user instead of the user having to make the first move.

Of course I can just "fake it" in the UI but I want the thread to be aware of this first message. Just adding it to the messages array doesn't seen to do it. Like this:

const [messages, setMessages] = useUIState<typeof AIProvider>();
const {submitUserMessage} = useActions<typeof AIProvider>();

useEffect(() => {
  setMessages([
	  ...messages,
	  {
		  id: 1,
		  display: 'Hello! How can I assist you today?',
	  },
  ]);
}, []);

[lgrammel]

When you create a new assistant thread, have you tried creating an initial user and assistant message using their API?

https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/messages/createMessage

[ranst91]

// Define the initial state of the AI. It can be any JSON object.
const initialAIState: {
	role: 'user' | 'assistant' | 'system' | 'function';
	content: string;
	id?: string;
	name?: string;
}[] = [{
	role: 'assistant',
	content: 'Hello! How can I assist you today?',
}];

// The initial UI state that the client will keep track of, which contains the message IDs and their UI nodes.
const initialUIState: {
	id: number;
	display: React.ReactNode;
}[] = [
	{
		id: Date.now(), // Just an example of an ID here
		display: <p>{initialAIState?.[0]?.content}</p>
	}
];

[simpel]

Sorry for the late reply! Thanks @ranst91

[haggen]

How does that work in the new version 5?

[hassanbazzi]

Agreed. I think this is broken in v5.

[magictalent]

"use client";

import { useEffect } from "react";
import { useActions, useUIState } from "ai/rsc";
import { AIProvider } from "@/app/actions";

export default function ChatInit() {
  const [messages, setMessages] = useUIState<typeof AIProvider>();
  const { submitUserMessage } = useActions<typeof AIProvider>();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (messages.length === 0) {
      // Send a "system-initiated" message that goes through the AI pipeline
      submitUserMessage("Hello! How can I assist you today?");
    }
  }, [messages, submitUserMessage]);

  return null;
}

You're right — just adding a message to the messages state only updates the UI, it doesn’t actually initialize a thread or trigger the model pipeline. To make the assistant start the conversation (and have it included in the thread state), you need to submit an assistant message via the useActions API instead of directly mutating the UI state.

setMessages() only affects client-side UI state — the thread in the backend (AIProvider) remains unaware.
submitUserMessage() triggers the AI action pipeline, updating the persisted message thread (both user + assistant context).
By wrapping it in a useEffect that checks for an empty thread, you ensure it runs only once when the chat is first initialized.

[github-actions[bot]]

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