Issued2026-04-10

Interim Measures for the Management of Anthropomorphic AI Interactive Services

RegulationInternational

Summary

Establishes binding rules for public-facing AI services that simulate human personality, communication style, and sustained emotional interaction. Covered providers must maintain lifecycle safety controls, protect user privacy and interaction data, label AI-generated interactions, limit overdependence and addictive use, intervene in extreme emotional or life-threatening self-harm situations, add protections for minors and older adults, conduct safety assessments in specified circumstances, and comply with algorithm filing and regulatory supervision requirements.

Healthcare Implications

Highly relevant to mental-health-adjacent AI companions and emotional-support chatbots. The measures create direct safety, disclosure, data-protection, youth-safety, and crisis-response obligations for emotionally interactive AI services and require health-related uses to comply with relevant health-sector rules. Developers of AI companions, virtual care assistants, and behavioral-health support tools operating in China must account for psychological-risk monitoring, emergency-contact workflows, limits on minor-facing intimate services, usage-duration reminders, AI labeling, sensitive interaction-data limits, and regulatory safety assessments.

Impact Level

High

Keywords

Safety & Risk; Transparency & Governance; Privacy & Data; Clinical Quality & Efficacy; Equity & Bias

Stakeholders

Patients & Public; Developers & Vendors; Providers & Health Systems; Regulators & Government