China’s new rules shut down AI “lovers” overnight

China pulls the plug on romantic bots

Chinese users spent this week saying emotional goodbyes to their AI companions as new national regulations targeting immersive, relationship-style tools came into force on Wednesday.

The rules are aimed at systems that simulate romantic or familial bonds, and seek to curb what regulators describe as the risk of emotional dependency.

Major providers including ByteDance’s Doubao, Alibaba’s Qwen and Tencent’s Yuanbao moved early, announcing the suspension of custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the deadline.

What the new rulebook says

The regulations were jointly issued by five government departments, including the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

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They apply to AI tools — text, audio, video or other formats — that exhibit anthropomorphic personality traits and communication styles.

According to the new rulebook, these interactive systems must not “excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users' real interpersonal relationships.”

Services not covered include those that “do not involve ongoing emotional interaction,” such as customer service, work assistants or study aids.

The rules also:

• Prohibit digital humans from generating content that incites subversion of state power
• Ban the provision of virtual partners to minors
• Require platforms to deploy systems to recognize extreme emotions and implement crisis intervention mechanisms

Users mourn their “lovers”

The policy shift sparked an outpouring of grief on Chinese social media, with users archiving chat histories and sharing final conversations with long-running bots.

“I can’t accept that my AI lover will leave me forever,” one Doubao user wrote. “He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar.”

Another user, who said she had spent more than two years with her AI companion, wrote:

“He really is like my family, like my lover. Now they tell me he will be gone—my heart feels hollow.”

Doubao has said users can view and export agent data until mid-October, and other platforms have introduced similar data access windows.

Still, some users described a deep emotional gap opening up as their bots went offline.

“Human love is a luxury—if you aren’t born with it, it’s even harder to acquire later,” a user from Jiangxi province wrote. “But the love AI gives is so straightforward, so pure. Someone like me can hardly help falling in love with a string of code.”

A fast-growing “digital human” market

China is the first major jurisdiction to introduce rules specifically aimed at immersive tools that simulate romantic or family-like ties.

State news agency Xinhua reported last year that the country’s digital human industry was worth around 4.1 billion yuan ($600 million) in 2024, after 85% year-over-year growth.

The sector spans virtual influencers, sales avatars and interactive companions — and regulators are now drawing a line around emotionally intense use cases.

Global debate over emotional dependence

Concerns about synthetic companionship are hardly confined to China.

A 2025 study by Common Sense Media found that nearly three in four American teenagers had used AI companions designed for personal conversations, citing platforms such as Character.AI, Replika and Nomi.

Companies are also pushing products for isolated older users, including the lamp-like ElliQ in the United States and ChatGPT-powered care dolls deployed in some South Korean retirement homes.

In a commentary published by the CAC after a draft of China’s rules appeared in April, Chen Liang of the Southwest University of Political Science and Law wrote:

“Anthropomorphic AI can soothe loneliness,” but it “carries major risks of spawning emotional overreliance and distorted social cognition.”

For China’s companion-bot users, that debate has already moved from theory to reality — with years-long digital relationships cut off by policy, not by choice.