Tencent, ByteDance, and Moonshot AI shut down chatbot features during China’s brutal college entrance exam, the gaokao.
No photo recognition. No real-time answers. All disabled from Saturday through Tuesday. The move is to block cheating on the country’s high-stakes test.
Millions of students, about 13.4 million this year, face near-total life change from this one exam. 
Screenshots on Rednote showed Tencent’s YuanBao, ByteDance’s Doubao, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi locking down exam-related question-answering during testing hours.
A user named "DKK" tried uploading test paper images to Doubao. The chatbot shot back:
"The image content is not compliant and the upload failed."
Another user, "Gemini0612," asked Doubao for help during the exam. Doubao replied:
"We are very sorry. In order to ensure the fairness of the college entrance examination, Doubao’s Q&A function will be temporarily closed during the examination period and will be restored after the examination at 6.45 p.m. this afternoon. Thank you for your understanding and support, and wish all candidates good luck in the college entrance examination."
Tencent’s YuanBao showed the same message:
"Dear users, to ensure fairness in the college entrance examination, this function is not available during the college entrance examination period. Tencent’s Yuanbao wishes all candidates success in the exam."
Moonshot AI’s Kimi locked down its photo and Q&A features too. One real photo question posted was met with:
"In order to ensure fairness during the college entrance examination period, this function is temporarily unavailable."
When challenged by a user who said he was not taking the exam, Kimi didn’t budge.
Tencent, ByteDance, and Moonshot AI declined to comment to Business Insider.
China pushes AI education heavily but draws a hard line on cheating. Beijing mandates at least eight hours of AI classes per school year starting this fall.
But during gaokao, AI is off limits. Tech firms are backing that stance by pulling the plug on their chatbots’ exam help features.
