Doubao and Qwen to Discontinue AI Agent Features
Taylor Wilson
ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen will pull all consumer-facing AI-agent functions by mid-July, as tighter regulation and unsustainable compute costs push China's major AI platforms out of persona chatbots and toward enterprise monetization.
What exactly is going offline?
Doubao will shut down its agent feature on July 15, redirecting users to ByteDance's Maoxiang app.
Qwen moves in two steps: persona-chat and user-built agents go dark on July 10; all remaining agent services end on July 15.
This means → role-play bots, custom assistants, and vertical-tool agents — the features that once drew consumer users and seeded user-generated content — will all disappear.
Why now?
The immediate trigger is regulation: China's *Interim Measures on AI Persona-Interaction Services* require platforms to enforce anti-addiction controls, minor-identity verification, and content-safety reviews.
On June 26, Shanghai's cyberspace authority reported that a cleanup campaign had already removed over 14,000 non-compliant agents, singling out MiniMax's "one-click undress" and gambling bots.
In plain terms = regulators are not issuing warnings — they are clearing the field. For platforms, shutting down the entire product line is simpler than fixing agents one by one.
How does the compute math work?
Persona chatbots and niche-character agents share a pattern: fragmented sessions, high-frequency calls, low payload per call — heavy on GPU load, nearly zero in revenue.
This means → every round of "chatting with a virtual character" burns compute but converts neither to paid subscribers nor ad income. The business model simply does not close.
This reflects a deeper reality: consumer persona chat was always more of a user-acquisition tactic than a standalone business. Once regulation tightens and costs rise, there is no reason to keep subsidizing it.
What happens to user data?
Doubao: users can view and export agent profiles and chat history after shutdown. After October 15, data will be processed under the privacy policy — no further access or recovery.
Qwen: users are advised to copy, screenshot, or export important content before shutdown. Configuration data and history will become permanently inaccessible afterward.
In plain terms = both platforms offer roughly a three-month grace window. After that, anything unsaved is gone.
Where are resources shifting?
Qwen is already pivoting: on June 3 it opened Agent and Skill integration to third-party enterprises and developers.
Early test partners include Luckin Coffee, KFC, Mixue Ice Cream, and China Eastern Airlines — all high-frequency consumer brands that generate real transaction volume.
This means → compute is moving from "companion chat" to "helping businesses sell." Enterprise clients can pay for the service, making the commercial logic far clearer.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.