Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen both announced that their agent features will go offline on July 15. That date happens to coincide with the official start of the “Interim Measures for the Management of Anthropomorphic Interactive AI Services.” Online, many people immediately called it a government ban on AI virtual companions.

      If you look at what is actually being removed, however, it’s not the new generation of agents everyone is excited about. The two are completely different things. It looks more like the big companies are using the new rule as a convenient moment to cut legacy teams and products so they can focus resources on the newer systems.