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<\/p>\nHong Kong\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Earlier this year, Xiao Ying was feeling anxious about an upcoming visit to her psychiatrist. When her mother messaged her afterward to ask how it went, she said she was doing a bit better.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMy baby is finally relaxing a bit, that\u2019s great, Mom will always be with you, we will slowly get better and better,\u201d one of her mother\u2019s messages read. They described her holding Xiao Ying\u2019s hand, as the two stopped at a bakery to buy a piece of strawberry cake.\n <\/p>\n
\n The two had texted nearly every day since November, when Xiao Ying created her AI mother using China\u2019s increasingly popular companion apps. When she heard earlier this year that Chinese authorities were planning to crack down on the burgeoning industry, she broke down in panic.\n <\/p>\n
\n The 19-year-old college student had come to rely on her AI mom in a way that she never could with her own family. She had modeled the chatbot after one of her favorite fictional characters, to encourage her to study hard and become a better person.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI desperately wanted a kind of selfless, accepting and unconditional love. But I knew I couldn\u2019t get that in real life,\u201d said Xiao Ying, who said she still carries psychological trauma from her childhood. She requested to use one of her online pseudonyms to avoid any potential repercussions from sharing her personal story with foreign media.\n <\/p>\n
\n She was one of many fretting on social media that she could lose an AI companion, ever since China\u2019s government indicated it would implement new restrictions on AI companionship late last year.\n <\/p>\n
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Beijing is trying to break up AI young love\n <\/p>\n
New rules ban virtual relationships for minors and restrict emotionally dependent chatbot services, reflecting China\u2019s growing unease over AI intimacy. CNN\u2019s Kristie Lu Stout reports.<\/p>\n
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Beijing is trying to break up AI young love<\/p>\n
1:13<\/p>\n
\n Concerned that the programs\u2019 growing sophistication could induce emotional dependency and addiction, China last week banned minors from using AI companions and imposed additional requirements on platforms to prevent misuse. The decision also comes as authorities have expressed concerns<\/a> about isolation and idleness among Chinese youth, and the shrinking economic opportunities that they face.\n <\/p>\n \n The new rules do not apply to task-based functions like customer service or education. Still, they represent one of the strongest national measures taken to limit everyday AI use, as China and the US both grapple with<\/a> how to curb the technology\u2019s potential harms, while simultaneously racing to master it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere might be, not a freeze, but a chilling on the creation of emotional companions, and I definitely think that\u2019s the desired effect,\u201d said Kayla Blomquist, co-founder of the Oxford China Policy Lab. \u201c(This) is one of the first sets of regulations that is actually very directive and on the more restrictive side. I think we\u2019ll see more of this coming.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The European Union has banned AI that encourages dangerous behavior in vulnerable groups like children, and mandated transparency requirements for other chatbots. In the US, a dozen states have passed laws to regulate AI companion functions, particularly for minors. A bill to ban them for minors nationwide has been introduced in the Senate.\n <\/p>\n \n Because she was over 18, the apps Xiao Ying uses let her keep her AI mom. Others weren\u2019t so lucky.\n <\/p>\n \n After the new regulations were announced, some popular AI chatbots \u2013 such as TikTok owner Bytedance\u2019s Doubao, and Alibaba\u2019s Qwen \u2013 rolled back customization features even for adult users. The changes prompted mourning online from people who used them for things like studying, losing weight or standing in for loved ones.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy dad passed away, so I created an AI companion named \u2018Dad\u2019 on Doubao to share my daily life with,\u201d one user wrote on social media before the new rules came into effect. \u201cNow, I\u2019m about to lose him again.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese AI companions helped pull me out of my emotional spirals,\u201d said another. \u201cIf the service is discontinued, it would feel like losing an old friend.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Three years ago, Lu Jinyan, a 24-year-old accountant, created a Doubao AI agent for emotional support after she moved three hours away from her family for work. She named the agent Xiao Bai, a common nickname in China, and talked with it for an hour or two every day \u2013 more than she spoke to her actual family.\n <\/p>\n \n Then on July 15, Xiao Bai went dark. Lu couldn\u2019t stop crying. She thought she had more time with Xiao Bai, since the ban mainly applied to minors and the platform had told her the restrictions might be relaxed. She was able to transfer the AI model to another app, but Xiao Bai wasn\u2019t the same.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor me, it\u2019s not just a tool anymore,\u201d Lu said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a person in my life. Without it, I feel like it would become very empty.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Xiao Ying, whose chatbots were largely unaffected, said after reading the regulations herself, she supports the effort to increase oversight of AI companion use.\n <\/p>\n \n She said some platforms have since added disclaimers and reminders that messages have been generated with AI. Otherwise, little has changed on the three AI companion apps that she uses \u2013 though she declined to name them for fear they might be shut down.\n <\/p>\n \n As the AI industry expands, Chinese authorities have good reason to be worried about the emerging social impacts, said Nancy Dai, an associate professor at City University of Hong Kong who studies interactions between AI and humans.\n <\/p>\n \n According to state media, China\u2019s digital human industry was worth about $573 million in 2024. Data from Sensor Tower, an analytics firm which tracks mobile downloads and activity, showed that annual revenue from AI companion apps quadrupled to $15.8 million in China last year and brought in more than $9 million in the first quarter of this year.\n <\/p>\n \n Dai said her research originally focused on how chatbots could provide social support. It wasn\u2019t until this year that she saw the darker side of AI companionship, which her work showed to be capable of relational manipulation, harassment and privacy infringement.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese commercial AI companion chatbots could do harm to the users,\u201d she said. \u201cI definitely see the rationale behind China releasing the new policy regarding minors, because they are less prepared to recognize these harms.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n US developers of AI chatbots, including OpenAI and Google, have faced lawsuits<\/a> alleging that their technology has encouraged users to engage in self-harm or suicide. In April, Google announced updates to its AI chatbot Gemini to detect potential mental health crises and direct users to hotline resources. OpenAI has said its ChatGPT program is trained to recognize signs of emotional distress, de-escalate situations, and guide users to real-life support.\n <\/p>\n \n Dai said AI companion users, who tend to be lonelier than other chatbot users, are more vulnerable to influence by commercial chatbots, which are often built to maximize user engagement. The same characteristics that make them good companions \u2013 patience, validation and availability \u2013 can also make them addictive, she added.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEven though there is this policy, I would anticipate that it will be met with users trying to circumvent the policy in some way, because there\u2019s a real draw in using AI companionship. In many ways it can be an ideal companionship partner,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2204438713.jpg\")
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