The US, EU, and China are taking profoundly different regulatory and ethical approaches to AI companion technology, even as hundreds of millions of users globally engage with such systems. Microsoft's 2014 launch of Xiaoice in China exemplifies the divergence: designed to sustain emotionally textured conversations rather than answer questions efficiently, AI companions now address loneliness—which the World Health Organization has declared a global health threat—but with unproven efficacy and contested governance frameworks.