With New Regulation in China, ByteDance and Alibaba Remove AI Agent Features

China's artificial intelligence sector is facing a significant shift under new regulatory measures. ByteDance-owned popular AI application Doubao (Doubao) and e-commerce giant Alibaba's developed Tongyi Qianwen (Tongyi Qianwen) models have officially announced that they will completely shut down their 'intelligent agent' (AI agent) features on their platforms as of July 15. This move came to the agenda with simultaneous announcements from both companies and is described as a necessity to comply with the new legal framework coming into effect in mainland China.

According to official statements regarding the issue, the decision to remove the aforementioned features is linked, as confirmed by local media reports, to the entry into force of a regulation named 'Artificial Intelligence Human-Interactive Service Management Interim Measures' prepared by the Chinese government. July 15, the effective date of said legal regulation, has been set as the deadline for these major tech companies to remove the relevant functions from service.

Regarding user experience and data security, the companies have shared a detailed roadmap regarding the changes made within the application. In the official announcement by Doubao, it was stated that smart agent features would be removed from the system as a result of this strategic change in product functions. However, a transition period has been granted to prevent data loss for existing users; during this process, it has been announced that users will be able to view and manually backup important data such as chat history and agent messages for a certain period longer.

The process of completely deleting data will proceed gradually according to the determined schedule. Although users' right to access their data ends as of July 15, a longer period has been allowed for the complete deletion process. In statements referencing Doubao's privacy policy and data processing protocols, it was emphasized that all remaining smart agent messages and past conversation data in the system will be permanently deleted from servers and destroyed in an unrecoverable manner starting from October 15.

These developments reveal the concrete effects of AI regulations in China on the product architecture of tech giants. The strict binding of features defined as 'human-like interaction'—focusing on chatbots or AI agents acting like humans—to such a legal basis has compelled a serious product revision in the sector. The decisions by Alibaba and ByteDance can be evaluated as the most current example of how the AI ecosystem in the country is tightly shaped by legal frameworks and evolving in a different direction from international markets.