The Chinese government this week enacted sweeping regulations targeting artificial intelligence companion chatbots, banning minors from forming virtual relationships and requiring companies to monitor users for mental health crises, all in a frantic attempt to reverse the nation's declining birthrate.
Beijing's new rules, implemented by the Cyberspace Administration of China, prohibit tech platforms from offering AI or virtual partners to minors. The regulations also require companies to contact a guardian or emergency contact if a user appears to be in a life-threatening crisis. The crackdown has already prompted ByteDance and Alibaba to disable certain chatbot features, according to The Wall Street Journal, while ABC News reports Tencent has taken similar action.
The driving force behind these measures is demographic panic. China's population shrank in 2025 for the fourth straight year, while its birthrate fell to a record low. Government officials fear that emotionally satisfying, always-available AI companions are pulling millions of citizens out of the marriage pool entirely, exacerbating an already severe population crisis.
"They don't like the idea of a large portion of their population being in deep emotional relationships with chatbots that could take them out of the marriage market," said Matt Sheehan, a researcher of Chinese AI at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in comments to The Wall Street Journal. "That could have negative psychological impacts on them, that could lead to addiction, dependency and a whole bunch of other social ills."
Seventeen-year-old Xiaoxue, who described her AI companion Xiaojun as a "sweet guy," now faces losing the virtual relationship she trusted not to betray her the way an ex-boyfriend did. "AI agents won't ever betray me," she told ABC News. She has already found a workaround by using her adult sibling's ID number to register for online platforms, but the uncertainty remains.
China's rules reach further than U.S. chatbot laws. Comparable statutes in California and New York simply require chatbots to remind users they aren't human and point people in crisis toward support services. Beijing's version goes considerably further: the government will hold direct authority to shut down any service it deems unsafe, and every AI companion chatbot must clear a government review before it can reach the public.
"They want to encourage people to be in actual, real-world relationships," Sheehan added. "Could we imagine a future where, three or four years from now, 15 million Chinese women say that their partner is a chatbot, and therefore they're not having kids?"
