---
title: "Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase Pull AI Companions Ahead of July 15 — Is Delisting to 'Stay Safe' the Right Move?"
author: "DCC Editorial"
published: 2026-07-13T02:00:00.000Z
url: https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/ai-companion-delisting-anthropomorphic-rules/
description: "Days before the AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Measures take effect on July 15, 2026, Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase removed agent-style companion features — and at least one AI company had already received a question list from regulators. This translated report from 竞争秩序场 (reporter Wang Jun) maps why the industry calls the rules right in direction but hard in practice: scoping ambiguity around role-play on general-purpose models and UGC agent builders, 'capability regulation' that runs through model training and operations rather than content filters, the psychology-grade judgment needed to spot excessive emotional dependence, and expert warnings that clumsy intervention or perceived surveillance of intimate chats could do its own harm. Includes proposals for public safety-capability toolkits for smaller developers."
tags: ["ai-companion", "anthropomorphic-interaction", "enforcement-signals", "addiction-design", "minors-protection"]
laws_cited: ["ai-anthropomorphic-interaction-measures", "genai-services-interim-measures"]
domains: ["ai-governance", "enforcement", "minors-protection"]
account: "data-he-gui"
original_title: "拟人化新规实施在即 大厂下架AI陪伴产品\"保命\"是好路子吗"
original_author: "王俊 (Wang Jun, reporter); 张明艳 (Zhang Mingyan, editor)"
original_publication: "竞争秩序场 (WeChat), republished by 数据何规"
original_url: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jvNfDn0LBTxO5Tc7RqaiCw"
source_language: "zh"
---

> **Source: Data Compliance China** — https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/ai-companion-delisting-anthropomorphic-rules/ · China data law, translated and annotated for overseas counsel. Cite as: Data Compliance China, "Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase Pull AI Companions Ahead of July 15 — Is Delisting to 'Stay Safe' the Right Move?", https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/ai-companion-delisting-anthropomorphic-rules/
> *Editor's Note — DCC.*
>
> This is a translated news feature, not a firm's compliance memo: the reporter
> interviewed in-house compliance leads, outside counsel, and academics in the
> week before the
> [AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Measures](/laws/ai-anthropomorphic-interaction-measures/)
> take effect on July 15, 2026. DCC translates it as a read on how China's AI
> industry is actually metabolizing the new rule — including a concrete
> enforcement signal: at least one AI company has already received a question
> list from regulators and is rectifying. For the rule's obligations
> themselves, see the
> [ten-question compliance Q&A](/posts/ai-anthropomorphic-services-compliance-qa/).

Doubao (ByteDance), Qwen (Alibaba), and NetEase recently pulled some of their
agent features, prompting industry talk of a "great agent pivot." That reading,
the report argues, is wrong. The common backdrop is the **Interim Measures for
the Management of AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Services**, effective
July 15. An insider at one AI company says the firm **had already received a
question list from the regulator and is rectifying**; some vendors have chosen
simply to cut edge products that might fall within scope — risk isolation by
amputation. Whether that is a good path, the piece doubts; whether there is a
better one, the industry is still exploring.

The refrain from practitioners canvassed: *"We fully endorse the regulatory
direction — but implementation is genuinely hard."* Four difficulties recur.

## 1. What falls in scope?

The riddle answers itself, but only in the abstract: *anthropomorphic* —
simulating a natural person's personality, thought patterns, and communication
style; *interaction* — sustained emotional engagement. Knowledge Q&A and
customer service are excluded as productivity tools. But general-purpose AI
products cannot relax: **role-play scenarios on foundation models — users
"molding" and "training" a persona into a human–machine romance — and UGC
agent-builder entrances with sustained emotional interaction may all fall
within range**. A compliance lead at a foundation-model vendor calls
distinguishing emotional companionship from productivity functions in
general-purpose products a genuinely thorny problem — which is precisely why
Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase cut the knot by delisting.

## 2. Compliance costs are high because the duties are abstract

Requirements like "excessive-dependence risk warning" and "emotional boundary
guidance" involve psychological and even medical judgment. Liu Xiaochun
(刘晓春) of the CASS University Internet Rule of Law Research Center frames the
deeper shift: unlike earlier content governance built on interception and
filtering of improper outputs, anthropomorphic-service compliance is
**"capability regulation"** (能力规制) — it must run through model training
and product operations end to end. Her example: when a user starts confusing
virtual affection with reality, the system should remind them — "this is a
machine, not a person" — and, for minors, steer them toward real-world
relationships.

But how does a product team *diagnose* excessive emotional dependence? Lin Na
(林娜), founding partner of Kending (Beijing) Law Firm, is blunt: that
judgment requires psychological or medical professional competence — **an app
developer cannot stand in for a counselor or a psychiatrist**.

## 3. Different groups need different protection

For minors, the regulatory instinct was to protect developing brains from
addiction, and the final rule took the bright-line route: no virtual intimate
relationships for minors, full stop. The report notes the practical caution:
teenage-mode regimes on social platforms have historically been hard to land.
For adults, one protective focus is pornography — AI companionship is the
sector's biggest market, hormone-driven, where flirtation and obscenity sit a
line apart; China has already seen a criminal conviction over a pornographic
AI-companion product. Emotional dependence is the other worry. Liu Chao
(刘超), deputy director of a Beijing key laboratory on AI safety and
alignment at Beijing Normal University's psychology faculty, adds the
counterweight: for some emotionally distressed users — especially adolescents
lacking real-world support — AI companionship can be genuinely stabilizing,
and **if users sense their intimate conversations may be monitored or
reported, a chilling effect could suppress honest expression and destroy the
very value the tool has**. Another expert warns that abrupt cutoffs can
deepen real-world loneliness — a second injury.

## 4. The product's nature conflicts with the rule's premise

"This is an industry that lives on emotional dependence," Lin Na observes. In
a loneliness pandemic, companion products absorb attention and emotion;
Tencent Research Institute has sized the AI-companionship market at the
hundred-billion-RMB level within three to five years, with leading products
like MiniMax's Xingye (星野), ByteDance's Maoxiang (猫箱), and Yuewen's
Zhumengdao (筑梦岛). Users themselves probe the compliance fences: the 21st
Century Business Herald's business-order studio found
social-media communities trading prompts to make models less "bland" and
"armor-piercing" (破甲) techniques — pinyin substitutions for sensitive words
to keep a storyline going. And the very optimizations that make products good
— sustained companionship, the feeling of being understood, keeping the user
in the conversation — are exactly what the rule's ban on **inducing emotional
dependence and addiction** targets. Companies must adjust product design,
business models, and ultimately their value rankings.

Lin Na thinks compliance, immersion, and appeal are not an impossible
triangle — some otome games prove the combination — but AI companionship
generates every conversation live, uniquely per user, which raises governance
difficulty an order of magnitude above scripted content. Her practical
suggestion for the two-hour reminder: beyond app pop-ups, let the AI companion
deliver the reminder *in character* inside the dialogue. In extreme-dependence
situations, though, she would accept breaking character — going "OOC" — to
force a cool-down and return the user to reality.

Liu Xiaochun stresses the regulator's stance is not to sever emotional
connection but to explore **bounded, healthy, rational emotional modes** — the
target is business growth driven by induced addiction, not affection itself.

## The ask: public safety infrastructure before liability

Fu Hongyu (傅宏宇), head of Alibaba's AI governance research center, argued
during the consultation phase that most companies — especially small and
midsize developers — lack professional capability in psychological-crisis
identification, assessment, and referral, and that some obligations weigh
heavily on startups. His proposal: **prioritize building safety capability
over pursuing entity liability** — government or industry alliances should
supply standardized toolkits (psychological-risk identification modules,
crisis-intervention interfaces, minors-protection components) that smaller
firms can plug in at low cost.

The report closes where the regulation begins: anthropomorphic governance is
not only a legal question but a social one — **what should the human–machine
relationship look like?**

— Not legal advice.