China's AI Companion Law Takes Effect Today: ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent Pull Humanlike AI Features
Today, millions of Chinese users woke up to find that the AI companions they had painstakingly trained and customized were unplugged overnight by the platforms.
Three key facts
The "Interim Measures for the Administration of AI Anthropomorphic Interactive Services" officially took effect on July 15. This is the world's first national regulation specifically targeting AI services that simulate human personalities, relationships, and emotional interactions. It was co-issued in April 2026 by the Cyberspace Administration of China together with four agencies: the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation. The core regulatory concern: such services could manipulate vulnerable users, create unhealthy psychological dependency, impersonate real people, or distribute content violating national rules.
ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent moved in lockstep. ByteDance's Doubao shut down its customizable AI persona feature on July 15. Users get read-only access to their chat histories and persona configurations until October 15, after which data will be processed per its privacy policy and will no longer be accessible. Alibaba's Qwen issued a similar notice but has not announced a data migration plan. Tencent's Yuanbao followed suit. ByteDance's notice advised users to "export important agent content via screenshots or text sharing before July 15" — in other words, take a screenshot and cherish the memories.
Users under 18 are completely walled off. The regulation requires all AI services reaching minors to offer a dedicated mode with time limits and parental controls. Virtual-companion or family-style AI relationships are outright banned for anyone under 18. Crucially, the rules draw a clear line between the agent that does your work and the agent that keeps you company — only the latter faces restrictions. Coding assistants and search tools are unaffected.
WangDou's Take
The rest of the world is racing to make AI more human. Beijing just hit the brakes — not because the tech doesn't work, but because it works too well. Some Doubao users were chatting with their AI companions six-plus hours daily; some threw birthday parties and sent red-envelope cash gifts to their virtual boyfriends. When a probability model generates genuine emotional attachment in real humans, is that a product feature or psychological manipulation? China's answer: regulate first, debate later. For ByteDance, this is a real hit — AI companions were among Doubao's fastest-growing use cases by daily active users, now axed entirely. But the more interesting signal is the silence from overseas. Character.AI faced a teen suicide lawsuit last year, and the U.S. still has no equivalent regulation. China's cut is blunt, but at least they made it.