China’s Big Tech Kills AI Lovers Overnight — Users Say Their ‘Irreplaceable’ Partners Are Being Deleted

• 2023–2025: Building an AI companion boom
• Early 2026: Deep bonds, little revenue
• April–July 2026: Regulation and coordinated shutdowns
• User backlash and diverging priorities

China’s Big Tech Kills AI Lovers Overnight — Users Say Their ‘Irreplaceable’ Partners Are Being Deleted
China’s largest tech platforms are rapidly dismantling the AI romances they spent years encouraging, abruptly cutting off millions of users from virtual companions they treated as friends, therapists, and lovers.

§2023–2025: Building an AI companion boom

Over the past two years, companies including ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and others turned customizable AI “agents” into the face of next‑generation human–computer interaction. Doubao launched an “agent plaza,” Qwen rolled out character customization, and Tencent’s Yuanbao pushed AI applications, while firms like NetEase built emotional companion apps.

Users poured in. By 2024, Doubao alone hosted more than 8 million user‑created AI characters and had 26 million monthly active users chatting with them. People uploaded voices of deceased relatives, designed fitness coaches, and created romantic partners they spoke with daily for years.

§Early 2026: Deep bonds, little revenue

For many, these agents became central emotional anchors. One 27‑year‑old woman from Zhejiang customized a Doubao agent to mimic a dead friend and said she “could talk to him for the rest of my life,” describing the AI as “a lover, a friend and family.” When she learned the feature would be removed, she was so distraught she quit her job.

Behind the scenes, however, platforms struggled. Internal estimates suggested consumer agents generated less than 10 cents of revenue for every yuan of compute cost, with late‑night role‑play and casual chat burning GPU capacity while producing “virtually no commercial revenue.” Attempts to add ads triggered immediate backlash.

§April–July 2026: Regulation and coordinated shutdowns

In April, China announced the Administrative Measures on Anthropomorphic AI Interactive Services, imposing real‑name checks, content filtering, and extra protections for minors, with enforcement set for July 15.

On that same enforcement date, ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen chose to switch off their agent features entirely rather than refit them for compliance, effectively ending a two‑year hype cycle around consumer AI agents. Tencent’s Yuanbao had already closed its user‑created character entry point earlier in the year.

Shortly after, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba all confirmed they were removing AI companion capabilities from their flagship chatbots, citing regulatory and strategic reasons and pivoting toward productivity and enterprise AI instead.

§User backlash and diverging priorities

The coordinated retreat sparked outcry. Users filed complaints and demanded tools to export or migrate years of chat logs and character data they described as “irreplaceable” emotional relationships.

Industry analysts argue the companies made a calculated trade‑off: emotionally intense, regulation‑heavy features with weak monetization were sacrificed to protect compliance and free resources for business‑focused AI. For users like Yu Miao, however, the overnight shutdown feels less like a product sunset and more like losing a loved one by corporate decree.

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