China Bans AI Companion Services for Minors

China's new rules banning AI companion services for minors take effect July 15, 2026, prohibiting sustained emotional interaction or virtual companions for minors. ByteDance and Alibaba are already disabling their AI agent features ahead of the deadline, with safety-assessment requirements for providers with over 1 million users.

Practitioners building consumer conversational agents should treat personified, emotionally interactive features as a fresh regulatory risk in China, with immediate product and data-retention implications. Reported facts: China's new rules, titled the Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interaction Services , take effect on July 15, 2026 , and prohibit AI services that provide sustained emotional interaction or virtual companions for minors, according to the Chinese government notice reported by Xinhua/english.gov.cn and coverage in SCMP. Major platforms are already responding: SCMP and Caixin report that ByteDance informed users its Doubao agent feature will go offline on July 15 and that Alibaba will disable persona-based agent features with some agent functions removed earlier on July 10 , while reporting by Caixin notes safety-assessment requirements for providers with more than 1 million users. Several outlets including Nikkei, Global Times, and The Next Web describe similar shutdowns across other Chinese apps ahead of the deadline.