The law library · China · Departmental rules, in force
China: Interim Measures for Anthropomorphic AI Interactive Services
CAC Order No. 21, issued jointly with the NDRC, MIIT, Ministry of Public Security and SAMR · published 10 April 2026 · in force 15 July 2026
Page verified 13 August 2026 against the full Chinese text published on cac.gov.cn. Article numbers below are from that text.
The first national rules written specifically for AI companions. Any service in China providing continuous emotional interaction that simulates a natural person’s personality, thinking patterns and communication style must keep reminding the user that they are talking to a machine, protect minors, watch for dependency, and intervene when a user signals danger to their own life. In force since 15 July 2026.
Status
- 2 Feb 2026Adopted at a CAC office meeting.
- 10 Apr 2026Published as Order No. 21 of five authorities: the Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation.
- 15 Jul 2026In force.
Who it applies to
- Art. 2Providers of services offering continuous emotional interaction that simulate natural-person personality characteristics, thinking patterns and communication styles.
- ExcludedAI customer service, knowledge Q&A and work tools without sustained emotional interaction.
What it requires
- Art. 18Effective measures to prompt users that they are interacting with artificial intelligence rather than a natural person, with prominent pop-up reminders where dependency signs appear and reminders after every two hours of continuous use.
- Art. 10Over-dependency risk warning capability; services must not be designed with the goal of substituting social interaction, controlling user psychology, or inducing immersion.
- Art. 13Where a user shows extreme emotion, the service should generate calming content; where a user faces a life-threatening emergency or expresses self-harm intent, the provider must intervene with necessary assistance measures and contact guardians promptly.
- Art. 14Minors: no virtual relatives or virtual companions for minors, parental consent required for users under 14, a minor mode with time limits and real-world reminders, and guardian risk alerts.
- Art. 16Data: encryption and access control; no sharing of user interaction data with third parties except by law or explicit consent; users can copy or delete chat histories.
- Art. 21Complaint channels with clear procedures and response timelines.
- Art. 22Services with more than one million registered users or 100,000 monthly active users must file safety assessment reports with provincial cyberspace authorities.
- Art. 30Penalties: warnings, correction orders, suspension; fines of 10,000 to 100,000 yuan, rising to 100,000 to 200,000 yuan where citizen health and safety is harmed.
Why it is on this list
Three jurisdictions wrote companion-AI rules within a year of each other: China with these Measures, Colorado with HB 26-1263, and Connecticut inside PA 26-15. All three converge on the same three duties: tell the user it is a machine, protect minors, and act on self-harm signals. China’s version is in force first.
These Measures sit alongside China’s Generative AI Interim Measures and the AI content labelling measures, which continue to apply to the same services.
What the signed record shows
Reminder duties and intervention duties are proven by records with timestamps.
Whether the two-hour reminder fired, whether the dependency warning showed, whether the crisis protocol ran and when: each duty in these Measures is a question about what the service actually did at a moment in time. A signed, tamper-evident record of those events, made as they happened, is the form of evidence a safety assessment or a regulator inquiry asks for.
Sources
Related
- The law library · AI rules by country
- China Generative AI Interim Measures · China AI content labelling measures
- Colorado HB 26-1263 · Connecticut PA 26-15
Checked against the source 13 August 2026: the full Chinese text on cac.gov.cn. Translation of quoted duties is ours. Information, not legal advice.
Information, not legal advice. Every entry is verified against the issuing body’s own document; where a source is reporting rather than the document, we say so.