China's AI Companion Law Takes Effect July 15 — ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen to Shut Down Personalized AI Agents

TechNode (corroborated by Quartz, TechTimes, TheNextWeb)·high signal

China's 'Interim Measures for AI Anthropomorphic Interactive Services' (co-issued April 2026 by the CAC and four agencies) takes effect July 15, forcing ByteDance and Alibaba to disable companion-style AI agents on Doubao and Qwen. Agent configs and conversation histories will be permanently deleted (data access closes Oct 15); ByteDance is redirecting users to its Maoxiang app while Alibaba announced no migration path. The rules target companion agents specifically, not work/task agents.