JUDGMENTRegulators on three continents spent this summer writing the same sentence: an AI may keep you company, but it has to say up front that it is not a person. I collect the first manuals of new industries the way other people collect stamps, and this summer loneliness finally got its own set. China's Interim Measures for Anthropomorphic AI Interaction Services took effect on July 15; Article 50 of the EU AI Act became applicable on August 2, requiring disclosure at the first interaction; California's SB243, the first companion-bot safety law, took effect at the start of the year with mandated disclosure plus self-harm intervention. Three jurisdictions, and every one of them points at the same word: dependence.
FACTNow look at the size of the business. Appfigures data reported by Decrypt: in the first half of 2026, romantic AI companion apps took in $162.8 million of in-app spending, with Zeta, a Korean product, accounting for about $33 million. Its curve is the real collector's item. AppMagic figures show Zeta's monthly revenue climbing from under $3 million in March to over $10 million in August, while downloads actually fell in June and July and Japan alone contributes more than 80% of revenue. Revenue per user roughly ten-folded in six months. In plain terms: no more new users, but the old relationships got more expensive. Meanwhile the best-funded companies are retreating. miHoYo's AI companion BSide: Olivia Lin launched on Steam Early Access on July 13 and shut down on August 11 — less than a month online — and Anuttacon, the studio founded by miHoYo co-founder Cai Haoyu, had already permanently closed AnuNeko. Article 8 of China's Measures says it in black and white: no generating content that excessively caters to users, induces emotional dependence or addiction, or damages users' real relationships; and virtual partners and virtual relatives are off-limits to minors.
SPECULATIONI keep a field guide of how this business survives the age of compliance. Type one: charge for relationship depth — Zeta's route — memory, voice, unlimited chat, priced by how far "your relationship" has progressed. That is precisely what the Measures define as the risk, so it will either cool down or change its name. Type two: charge for audience breadth — the most valuable segment, minors, has been fenced off entirely. Type three is the door the manuals themselves left open: the documents explicitly encourage anthropomorphic interaction for cultural transmission, elder companionship and childcare. The law does not object to AI keeping people company; it objects to AI replacing people. The last page of the guide belongs to the contrast: the best-funded game studios are walking away with the strongest character-building technology, while the long tail of pay-for-butterflies apps keeps running flat out — their window being exactly the stretch of time before the statutes finish being written.
OPINIONMy read: the thicker the manuals get, the more this business has to shift from "addictive" to "useful." Loneliness will not be cured, only repriced — and the pricing power is moving from operations teams to legislators. Malls are remaking themselves into social venues while AI catches the late-night confessions on the other side of the screen; these are two quotes for the same need. As for which quote holds up over time, the first batch of manuals has already drawn the frame around the answer.
