Chinese artificial intelligence firms have temporarily disabled certain chatbot functionalities to prevent academic dishonesty during crucial nationwide college entrance examinations, according to a report by Bloomberg. This includes popular applications such as Alibaba’s Qwen and ByteDance’s Doubao, which have halted image recognition services that could assist students with test-related queries. Tencent’s Yuanbao and Moonshot’s Kimi have entirely suspended their photo-recognition capabilities during exam hours.
The proliferation of chatbot technology has made it increasingly easy for students globally to engage in cheating practices. In the United States, educational institutions have begun tackling this challenge by reintroducing traditional paper assessments, with the Wall Street Journal reporting in May a surge in the sale of blue books in universities across the nation over the past two years.
The intensive multi-day “gaokao” examinations will be taken by over 13.3 million Chinese students from June 7 to June 10, with participants competing for limited university admission spots. With existing restrictions on the use of electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops during these lengthy assessments, the suspension of AI chatbot services adds an extra layer of prevention against cheating for this critical exam period.
In response to inquiries regarding the service suspensions, Bloomberg indicated that both Yuanbao and Kimi chatbots cited their actions as measures “to ensure the fairness of the college entrance examinations.” Additionally, the DeepSeek AI tool, which gained considerable attention earlier in the year, has also ceased operations during peak exam times to uphold examination integrity, as reported by The Guardian.
No public statements have been released by the involved AI companies about these shutdowns. Coverage has largely stemmed from student reports circulating on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform. Given the gaokao’s fierce competitiveness—being the singular pathway to higher education institutions in China—there are rising concerns about students potentially resorting to AI tools to enhance their examination performance.
