China’s leading technology companies temporarily disabled core functions of their generative-AI chatbots during this year’s national college entrance examination, or Gaokao, in a coordinated effort to curb cheating. More than 10 million high-school seniors sat for the high-stakes test from 7 to 10 June, which largely determines university placement. Platforms such as Alibaba’s Qwen, ByteDance’s Doubao, Tencent’s Yuanbao, Moonshot’s Kimi and DeepSeek froze features including image recognition and real-time question answering during exam hours. Although authorities have repeatedly warned against high-tech cheating, Beijing issued no formal directive; the companies acted pre-emptively to safeguard exam integrity and demonstrate compliance with government expectations. Normal service is expected to resume now that the 2025 Gaokao has concluded.