China is a country defined by major contradictions. The nation is governed by a communist party that has carefully embraced market forces as part of a long transition away from capitalism. Against this backdrop of ideological tension, it’s no surprise that smaller contradictions abound.
Among them is the country’s embrace of human-like AI systems, which are increasingly being embedded in cuddly, commercial, transactable toys — for adults, strikingly, in addition to children — at the same time that state regulators are considering a broader crackdown on that exact type of tech.
New reporting by China Daily reveals the rise of AI companion toys among adults in China, a trend emerging as more of the country’s citizens live alone than ever before.
Nancy Liu, a 27-year-old interviewed by the publication, says she goes to bed each night cuddled up with an AI toy. She’s drawn to it, she says, by features like simulated breathing, a heating mechanism, and its ability to have casual conversations at all hours of the day.
“It feels like something is waiting for me,” she said. “Not judging, not rushing — just there.” Liu doesn’t detail which device she’s using as a companion, but judging by the explosion of similar toys on the market, she’s far from alone.
At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, there were some 60 AI toy companions on display. Per China Daily, Chinese companies represented about 80 percent of them.
From the egg-shelled Sweekar AI pocket pet to the fuzzy Fuzozo and the autonomously roving TCL AiMe, AI toys are taking China by storm. China Daily reported that transaction volumes for AI toys on the e-commerce giant Taobao jumped by over 1,600 percent in 2025. On e-commerce site JD.com, sales of the Laolao Parrot toy approached some 7 million units sold — a huge number for one toy, likely helped by the fact that each toy is priced at just 159 yuan, or about $23 US dollars.
For all their commercial success, the AI companion toys seem to stand in conflict with recent regulations eyed by lawmakers in Beijing. Right before the new year, the Cyberspace Administration China proposed a slew of reforms meant to ensure AI developers protect consumers’ mental health from chatbot interactions amid reports of people around the world experiencing sometimes-profound mental health problems associated with AI use.
Though the regulations have yet to pass, they would be sweeping, holding Chinese tech firms accountable for AI which generates content promoting suicide, self-harm, gambling, obscenity, violence, or which is found to be manipulating users’ emotions.
Whether such wide-ranging AI behaviors can even be controlled for remains to be seen, but the real test may be whether Beijing can reconcile its regulatory ambitions with a consumer market that has already embraced these toys by the millions.
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