CHINA CRACKED DOWN ON AI ROMANCE CHATBOTS FOR MINORS
China cracked down on AI romance chatbots, banning virtual partners for minors and ordering providers to rein in emotional dependency.
The Interim Measures for the Management of AI Human-Like Interaction Services took effect July 15, 2026. China’s cyberspace authority issued them with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration for Market Regulation.
The measures cover AI services that simulate personality traits, thought patterns and communication styles to sustain emotional interaction, Latham & Watkins said.
“Beyond the bans on emotional reliance and minors, the new rules require companion chatbots to undergo regulatory evaluation before being offered to the public, and give the government a freer hand to shut down any deemed unsafe,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
What the rules require
Providers may not offer minors virtual intimate relationships, including virtual family members or partners.
Users under 14 need a parent’s or guardian’s consent to use other covered services. Providers must also build a minor mode with periodic reminders, usage-time limits and parental safety controls.
Companies must verify ages and give parents tools to block characters and limit spending by minors. They also have to run safety assessments and submit reports before launch and once they hit set user thresholds.
The BBC reported that chatbots must tell users they are not human and send a reminder every two hours about time spent online. Companies that break the rules can face fines of 200,000 yuan or public criticism, the BBC reported.
The rules reach AI built as friends or romantic partners, along with language models that imitate human interaction. Customer-service and education bots that offer no emotional services are not covered.
What happened next
The measures were published April 10, 2026, and the tech giants moved fast once they kicked in. Caixin reported that Alibaba and ByteDance disabled chatbot persona features in response.
ByteDance had told users that some chatbot features would be disabled by Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The paper called Beijing’s approach more heavy-handed than U.S. lawmakers’ approach to AI mental-health safeguards.
The rules arrived amid falling marriage and birth rates, Bloomberg reported. Yahoo News / Digital Trends reported that China’s population shrank for the fourth consecutive year in 2025 and that births hit a record low.
That report pointed to AI characters portrayed as having children with human companions, and to AI recreations of deceased family members. It also said concerns have been raised in China that unchecked AI could affect employment, education and fertility.
Ma, a fellow with ERA, a British nonprofit talent and research program, said the rules struck a middle path. “This regulation tried to strike a balance between the AI service providers, the users, as well as guardians of minors using the services,” Ma said, the Economic Times reported.
The Economic Times reported on October 15, 2026 that the rules also require chatbot platforms to warn users against excessive reliance and to intervene when users appear to be in extreme distress.
