Immediately after China’s national college entrance exam, or gaokao, scores were released, students and parents flocked to AI chatbots from Big Tech firms Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent for admissions counseling, shaking up a market valued at CNY 1 billion (approximately $147.1 million). While analysts note the information gap is narrowing, especially for families unable to afford expensive consulting, critics point out that results vary depending on users’ prompt-writing skills, meaning existing inequalities are unlikely to be fully resolved.
According to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 13th, AI chatbot-based admissions counseling surged across China immediately following this year’s gaokao. Some 12.9 million students took the exam last month, and once scores were released at the end of the month, students and parents had just days to decide on universities and majors. The pressure was immense: hundreds of universities offer thousands of majors, and factors such as departmental reputation and career prospects heavily influence future trajectories.
China’s Big Tech services seized this opportunity. Alibaba reported that by the end of June, over 14 million people had used the admissions support feature embedded in its AI assistant, Tongyi Qianwen. Baidu said approximately 15 million users accessed its AI college application helper during the same period. Tencent’s AI chatbot, Yuanbao, received roughly 80 million admissions-related queries.
AI has begun providing, all at once and for free, information that middle-class Chinese families previously secured through expensive consultants and personal connections—admissions probabilities for universities nationwide, career prospects by major, and living costs in university cities. Observers note that AI is particularly useful in China’s admissions system, where exam scores almost entirely determine acceptance.
Zhang Qi, a ride-hailing driver in Guangzhou, used multiple AI chatbots as free counselors this year. Originally from Shaanxi Province, his son wanted to study in Shenzhen, but the family only had information about universities near their hometown. “Before, I only knew about universities near home. Now, AI shows us where my son can apply nationwide based on his score,” Zhang told the SCMP.
The spread of AI is directly impacting the admissions consulting market. China’s college admissions consulting market surpassed CNY 1 billion last year and is projected to grow to CNY 1.22 billion next year, but AI is eroding the competitiveness of basic information-based consulting by offering it for free. One Guangzhou-based consultant slashed the price of a standard consulting package from around CNY 5,000 (approximately $738.80) to CNY 2,999 (approximately $443.13).
However, experts believe demand for in-person consultations persists. In fact, families are reportedly seeking face-to-face advice to interpret AI-generated recommendations and translate them into application strategies.
The AI effect does not apply uniformly to all families. Inputting only a child’s score and home region likely yields generic answers, but adding detailed conditions—such as tuition budgets, desired career paths, and preferred locations—produces far more specific results. Consequently, prompt-writing ability is emerging as a new variable.
The SCMP analyzed that “rather than completely replacing the existing admissions consulting market, AI is likely to take over basic information provision, while human consultants will be repositioned to offer personalized interpretation and judgment.” While services that merely provide lists of eligible universities can hardly compete with AI, the role of human consultants is expected to endure in areas requiring comprehensive judgment that integrates individual household finances, students’ career goals, and personal aptitudes.
