{
  "id": 19644,
  "title": "Anxious Chinese students are trusting AI to help pick colleges and majors",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/07/29/anxious-chinese-students-are-trusting-ai-to-help-pick-colleges-and",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-07-29T10:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Rest of World Tech",
    "slug": "rest-of-world-tech",
    "url": "https://restofworld.org/2026/china-ai-bot-college-advice/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Every year, approximately ten million Chinese students face the daunting task of selecting their universities and majors following the grueling national college entrance exam, known as the gaokao. With just a few weeks to make this critical decision, students must weigh their scores, desired fields of study, budget, and preferred location. AI chatbots are stepping in to assist these students, offering free college program recommendations. Companies like Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu have launched AI tools that analyze universities' historical admission cutoff scores, along with students' gaokao scores, career interests, personality assessments, and other preferences such as tuition fees and local climate. These AI systems generate a list of suggested programs, categorized into \"reach,\" \"safety,\" and \"backup\" based on the likelihood of acceptance. Alibaba's Qwen, for example, recruited 300 college search specialists to refine its AI system. As of July 8, Alibaba's Qwen had produced 23 million college program recommendation reports for this year's gaokao takers. Chinese students and parents increasingly rely on AI due to the high youth unemployment rate and fears that jobs may soon be taken over by artificial intelligence. Even TikTok influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who had 27 million followers and provided blunt advice on successful majors, has been replaced by AI versions of him. These AI chatbots have become a popular choice for college admission consulting, especially in a country with limited career counseling in high schools.",
  "summary": "Alibaba, ByteDance, Baidu, and Tencent guide hundreds of millions of high-school grads to optimize the high-stakes university match system.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}