AI companions are, for many, a resource – but countries such as China are enacting policies to regulate how they are used.

To combat her loneliness, An Xu, a 15-year-old middle schooler in Shanghai, had recently been relying for emotional support on her text and voice conversations with an AI…

Using VPNs, company accounts and other work-arounds, China’s AI users are flocking to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.