ByteDance’s Doubao and Alibaba’s Qwen to shut down AI agent features on July 15

ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen announced that their AI agent creation features will be discontinued on July 15, 2026. Following this shutdown, users cannot create new AI agents, and all existing user-created agents will stop functioning. These actions by the tech giants come ahead of new Chinese regulations. These regulations may set a global precedent for managing AI-human interactions and addressing emotional dependency issues, influencing how companies handle AI companion features moving forward.