CX Daily: China’s AI Companions Struggle to Turn Intimacy Into Industry

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Analysis: China’s AI Companions Struggle to Turn Intimacy Into Industry

The artificial intelligence (AI) boom sweeping the globe has reached one of the most intimate frontiers — companionship. Yet in China, developers are finding that creating digital friends and partners is easier than turning them into a viable business.

Two of the country’s leading AI social apps, ByteDance Ltd.’s BagelBell and MiniMax’s Xingye, both saw their monthly active users fall more than 12% year-on-year in June, according to research firm QuestMobile. Across the sector, Chinese AI social apps drew 71.9 million monthly active users in August — a fraction of the more than 650 million using AI search engines and assistants — down slightly from the previous month.