Doubao and Qwen are pulling user-created agents days before Beijing’s world-first rules on humanlike AI interaction take effect
ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen are disabling custom AI agent features ahead of China’s Interim Measures on anthropomorphic AI interaction services, effective 15 July. The rules target bots offering sustained emotional interaction while sparing workplace and productivity agents. Tencent pulled a similar Yuanbao feature in June, and users are protesting the loss of chat histories.TL;DR
ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen, two of China’s biggest consumer AI apps, are disabling their customised agent features, the South China Morning Post reports. The move comes days before Beijing’s new rules on humanlike AI interaction services take effect on 15 July.
Doubao told users on Friday that its agent feature would go offline on 15 July, citing product function adjustments. Related data will stop being viewable or recoverable inside the app after 15 October.
Qwen followed on Saturday, saying humanlike interactive agents and user-created agents would be disabled on 10 July, with broader agent functions offline by 15 July. Users will lose access to agent settings and their previous conversations.
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Both apps let users build named assistants, tutors, role-playing characters, or companions with fixed personas and speaking styles. Tencent removed a similar feature from its Yuanbao assistant in June, and Chinese state media confirms the shutdowns are about regulatory compliance.
The Interim Measures for AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Services were issued in April by the Cyberspace Administration of China and four other agencies. They cover services that simulate human personality traits, thinking patterns, and communication styles to provide sustained emotional interaction.
Customer service bots, knowledge Q&A, workplace assistants, and education and research tools are excluded, provided they avoid sustained emotional interaction. The measures cite risks spanning extremist content, privacy leaks, harm to mental health, and addiction, and require anti-addiction systems and identity checks for minors.
“Current agents are not yet mature,” Pan Helin, a member of an expert committee at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the SCMP. He said the policy prioritises safety, practical use, and standardisation.
Beijing is not against agents as such. Regulators issued guidance in May on the managed development of AI agents, and China released national standards in June covering agent identity, discovery, interaction, and tool use.
The pattern suggests China wants agents as productivity infrastructure while squeezing companion bots that form quasi-social bonds with users. Researchers have long documented the risks of such bonds, from AI girlfriends’ hunger for personal data to what Wharton academics call cognitive surrender.
Platforms outside China face growing pressure over emotionally engaging bots too, with Meta posing as teens to test rival chatbots on sensitive topics. Beijing has simply chosen to regulate first and let the products catch up.
The timing stings for both companies, which are pouring resources into AI, from Alibaba’s homegrown accelerator chips to Doubao’s push to become China’s default assistant. It also lands as Beijing tightens control of the sector in other ways, including plans to vet US investment in its top AI firms.
Users mourned the shutdowns openly, with one Weibo poster calling the agents long-standing emotional support and lamenting the lack of any easy way to export chat histories. In China’s agent economy, the companions go first and the workers stay.
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