China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s principal civilian intelligence and counterintelligence agency, has found a fresh-faced recruit for its public messaging campaign: Agent 012339, an AI-generated anchor who appears in full MSS uniform to deliver cautionary tales about national security threats. The youthful digital spokesman, complete with badge number prominently displayed, is the agency’s effort to shift from faceless bureaucratic warnings to personable, social media-ready content — if you find AI personable, that is.

The MSS WeChat account deployed its AI anchor today to narrate the story of “Dong” (董某某), an employee at an unnamed major corporation who allegedly leaked sensitive commercial data to foreign entities. The post detailed how Dong used a VPN to send information about export cargo, shipping routes, and transaction values to foreign authorities, eventually causing what the ministry described as “major economic losses” when foreign parties intercepted company vessels and imposed sanctions.

Today’s warning emphasizes that citizens with access to “core information” (核心数据) — a term deliberately left undefined in Chinese law to give authorities maximum interpretive flexibility — must maintain vigilance. The post frames workplace dissatisfaction as a national security vulnerability by linking Dong’s resentment over performance reviews directly to his decision to leak data that “harmed national interests” (危害了国家利益).

The MSS urged the public to report suspicious activity through its 12339 hotline and online platforms. That’s right. You guessed it. The badge number for the new MSS AI poster boy is the same number as the ministry’s longstanding security hotline, which for the past decade has been used to report the spies and subversives living amongst ordinary Chinese. With its new AI makeover, informing on your co-worker in the next cubicle never looked so congenial.