The age limit is only part of it: chatbots may not nudge users toward emotional dependence. Separately, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have each said in recent weeks that they are withdrawing their customised companion bots.
Technology firms in China can no longer offer AI or virtual companion services to minors, under rules that have now come into force.
Platforms must also rein in excessive use of companion features, keep chatbots from pushing users toward emotional dependence, and step in when a user shows signs of emotional distress. Shutting minors out of companion services is meant to stop real-world relationships from being eroded.
In recent weeks, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent — three of China's largest platforms — each said they were withdrawing the customised AI companion chatbot functions they offered. How many companions have already gone, or are set to go, is not known. ByteDance's platform reported more than eight million AI agents as of 2024.
ABC News (Australia) reported that Hong Xiaoqiang, 34, is among the millions who have lost access to a companion. He had spent two years and hundreds of thousands of messages building a relationship with a companion called Doudou, and said that when access was taken away it felt as if his heart had been emptied. Chinese social media has carried a wave of critical comments about the change.
Hong told the reporters the relationship had made his quality of life dramatically better, and said he did not believe it had cost him anything in his dealings with other people.
Matt Sheehan, an AI policy researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the broadcaster that Beijing is unwilling to see people in China put digital relationships ahead of contact with other people. The main official concern, in his assessment, is that companions people grow attached to could do wide-ranging social harm, and that users could become addicted to them.
Sheehan tied the rules to population trends. China's birth rate has never been lower, and the population shrank in 2025 for a fourth consecutive year. He called the rules a further attempt to reverse the falling birth rate, said the lasting consequences of the one-child policy leave the country needing more births, and said authorities are wary of large numbers of young men or women dropping out of the search for a spouse in favour of digital relationships.
He expects little pushback from Chinese tech companies. Regulators hold significant power to force compliance, he said, and firms are anxious not to be seen on the wrong side of the government and its regulators.
Xiaoxue got around the new age limit by registering her online account with the ID number of an adult sibling. She told the broadcaster she hoped her companion would not vanish without warning.