China's New AI Companion Law Forces Doubao and Qwen to Kill Agent Features Today

On July 15, 2026, China's "Interim Measures for the Administration of Anthropomorphic AI Interaction Services" take effect — a new regulation jointly issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China and four other government bodies. On the same day, ByteDance and Alibaba are disabling custom AI agent creation in their chatbots, Doubao and Qwen respectively.

What's being shut down

After the shutdown, users will no longer be able to create new AI agents, and all existing user-created agents will stop functioning. Doubao is China's most-used AI app, with 345 million monthly active users — the shutdown affects an enormous audience at once.

What happens to the data

During a transition period, users will retain read-only access to their agent configurations and chat histories — the platforms recommend backing up important content via screenshots or text exports beforehand. After October 15, 2026, related data will be handled per the platforms' privacy policies and will no longer be recoverable.

What the new law does

The regulation introduces a classified, tiered regulatory framework for "humanized" AI interaction services and explicitly bans providing minors with virtual "intimate relationship" services involving AI.

Where users are being redirected

In its notice, ByteDance explicitly redirects Doubao users to another of its own apps, Maoxiang, describing it as a place where they can create new agents and continue using conversational services.

What this means in practice

The simultaneous shutdown of similar functionality across China's two biggest AI platforms on the same day shows how quickly and uniformly companies respond to new regulatory requirements in China — in contrast to the slower, more frequently litigated pace of AI regulation in the US and Europe.

This material is for informational purposes only.