AI college entrance examination volunteers are popular. Can the big model replace Zhang Xuefeng?

AI big models have entered the field of college entrance examination volunteer application. Can they replace the guidance of famous teachers such as Zhang Xuefeng? This article explores the role and limitations of AI in college entrance examination volunteer planning, and is recommended for candidates and parents to read.

The 2024 college entrance examination results have been announced one after another, and Zhang Xuefeng has unsurprisingly become the "top star" again.

On the eve of the college entrance examination, the 2024 volunteer application dream cards and dream-fulfilling cards priced at 11,999 and 17,999 yuan in Zhang Xuefeng's live broadcast room were snapped up by parents. The hot search on Weibo "Zhang Xuefeng earned 200 million yuan by selling cards in 3 hours of live broadcast" received more than 3 million readings on the 19th alone.

In addition to lamenting the popularity of the college entrance examination, the money-making ability of the name Zhang Xuefeng has also been verified again:

Although the price is obviously not cheap, and although the introduction given by Fengxue Weilai (a company owned by Zhang Xuefeng) clearly mentions that the course is only a "team teacher service" and not instructed by Zhang Xuefeng himself, it still cannot stop parents' enthusiasm for "paying for directions".

Filling out the application form is essentially a set of logic for screening and matching data: in most cases, a part that is not lower than the threshold is selected from a large number of universities and colleges across the country based on the college entrance examination scores, and then the most suitable one or several items are matched from this part as the first and alternative options according to the needs of the candidates.

This complex work involving data, systems and decision-making is the reason for the consulting fees exceeding ten thousand yuan.

Is Zhang Xuefeng's team the only one in the field?

But there are also disruptors now. In the 2024 college entrance season, the big artificial intelligence models that are in the limelight have entered the track of college entrance examination application: Reliable AI, Quark, Baidu, both new and old players have printed the words "College Entrance Examination Application" on the cover, which has become a golden signboard.

On the technical level, whether it is data screening and matching or conversational consultation based on natural language understanding, the big models of 2024 seem to be capable of doing the job.

But a very realistic problem is that this matter has a huge impact on the college entrance examination. It is true that artificial intelligence can do it, but can it do it well?

1. Reliable AI: More reliable, still requires in-app purchases?

Before the 2024 college entrance examination, Kaopu AI (Beijing Kaopu Qiancheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.) announced that it would open its volunteer application AI tool to candidates and parents for free. Users can submit simulated scores multiple times and predict the admission results of different volunteers, and can also predict the admission ranking of each college that year.

Open the Kaopu AI App, and you will see that "Gauda (AI volunteer planner)", one of the two college entrance examination related applications, is placed on the homepage of the current version and can be seen as soon as the screen opens; the other "Xiaozhi (simulated volunteer application)" is also in the first place on the left.

By giving the candidates' scores and needs directly to AI, Gaoda quickly gave a list of four-tiered volunteers, from the top (highest score) "Chong" (can try to apply) to the bottom "Dian" (backup option). The scores and majors also completely correspond to the information given in the question. On the premise of ensuring that the school data is correct, this answer is theoretically quite valuable for reference.

However, the four schools corresponding to the four tiers actually only have one option in each tier, and you can see more options for each tier in the subdivision column. But if you want to view the complete application plan, you need to pay extra, the lowest tier is 399 for a three-month gold card membership, and the highest tier includes a full set of services such as assessment courses, psychological counseling, and real-person review, and the price is as high as 1999 yuan/three months.

If compared with the leading teams such as Zhang Xuefeng, this pricing can obviously be called "cheap". As for whether it can be "good value for money", it seems that it still needs more endorsement from famous teachers.

Thanks to the large model that can understand natural language, in addition to filling out the application form, users can also communicate directly with the reliable AI for more specific school recommendations and career guidance. This is undoubtedly the biggest difference from the traditional university database and the most intuitive change in user experience.

Unfortunately, after reaching a certain amount of usage or duration, the paid option will be triggered, and users can no longer use it for free, which gives them limited room to try it out. As for "Xiaozhi", which is placed at the second position in the navigation bar, it is more like a traditional database based on college entrance examination scores, which is summarized and ranked by AI. The data may be a bit complicated for some parents.

About an hour after using the reliable AI to fill in the application form, the official customer service called Lanmeijun directly to discuss the college entrance examination related needs. It can be seen that AI application is currently the company's highlight, and it is obvious that it has put a lot of effort into promotion.

Liu Jianhua, founder of Reliable AI, previously stated that no human planner can compare with AI in the field of college entrance examination application. He believes that people often find it difficult to distinguish between opinions and facts, and real data and facts are the key to guiding correct decision-making.

“Let this important decision-making process become more inclusive, professional and accurate.”

Inclusiveness is relatively easy to understand, but the professionalism and accuracy levels still require some real cases from users to prove it.

2. Quark, the master's sixth college entrance examination

As an intelligent search application incubated internally by Alibaba and aimed at young people, Quark officially stated that 2024 is the sixth consecutive year that Quark has provided free college entrance examination information search and volunteer application assistance to college entrance examination candidates and parents.

Although both apps put college entrance examination volunteers in the App icon as a selling point for the season, the main focus is still comprehensiveness. Quark did not put college entrance examination volunteers on the homepage like Reliable AI.

Entering the App, "Quark College Entrance Examination" is placed at the first place in the application list below the search bar, with a red out-of-box label.

However, in terms of specific operations, Quark's model is more traditional. Users need to complete the information step by step and cannot call up the big model with one click. Some short questions that can be summarized by AI will first give the search results and then be integrated by AI.

After filling in the corresponding province, subject and grades, Quark automatically ranked and listed three levels of school recommendations: high school, middle school and low school, and the number was quite large.

However, perhaps thanks to years of accumulation, Quark College Entrance Examination has done a very comprehensive and detailed job in terms of data, from scores over the years to enrollment plans, and even tuition fees and subdivided subjects are provided for reference. In addition, it is very important for users to experience that there seems to be no mandatory payment items in the basic functions of Quark College Entrance Examination.

As for things that have little to do with the college entrance examination itself, but will greatly affect college life in the next few years, Quark has integrated the updates and notes from platforms such as Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, and also summarized and recommended campus environment profiles that students and parents may be concerned about. This is obviously the technology and data dividend brought by Quark's core business of "search".

Compared with reliable AI with more vertical functions, Quark is more conservative in terms of college entrance examination applications: it has enhanced AI based on the original functions, but did not directly let the big model take over the entire process. Instead, it further demonstrated its advantages in search, and the big model provided appropriate comprehensive opinions.

Another point is that Quark does not seem to position itself as an AI mentor that can replace "Zhang Xuefeng". At this stage, it is still more of an auxiliary tool, and even invited Zhang Xuefeng himself to do publicity.

3. Wen Xin Yi Yan: I want them all

Baidu is one of the earliest companies that has been doing college entrance examination application services longer than Quark. Even before the popularization of big model technology, Baidu had already been building college entrance examination score checking and school data for a long time.

For the 2024 college entrance season, Baidu has integrated quark-type search and a large model capability with a very high presence in the main App: users can search for keywords such as college entrance examination and volunteer in the Baidu App to call up the application link for the Baidu College Entrance Examination. After entering the score, provincial rankings and school recommendations can be generated with one click.

In terms of specific functions, it is similar to Quark in that you cannot communicate with the big model directly in the browser interface, you must enter the college entrance examination application; but the difference is that Baidu has set up a special "AI Chat Volunteer" entrance in the lower right corner. After clicking in, you can enter the dialogue session with the AI, which is equivalent to a Wenxin Yiyan that specializes in checking college entrance examination scores and filling out volunteers.

At the data level, Baidu also provides comprehensive and detailed information, including but not limited to scores, majors, tuition fees, and enrollment plans, etc. The compilation and compilation of public information is not a problem for large companies with accumulated experience.

In addition to the first-level functions, functions such as the ability to perform multiple additional comparisons, including fixing a certain option on the far left and then adjusting the comparison items on the right (up to five universities and colleges can be compared horizontally), are obviously the experience summed up by a veteran who has worked in the "filling out application forms" industry for many years, and they solve the pain points of users in actual use.

Baidu, which takes into account multiple dimensions such as model capabilities, data accumulation and user experience, has become one of the few "integrators" in the industry.

IV. Conclusion

The time for the 2024 college entrance examination results to be released is approaching, and the competition between manual and artificial intelligence for business may become a trend, but it may not be very obvious this year.

In terms of data and experience, both small and large companies have actually achieved tremendous quantitative changes compared to the past online college entrance examination score and application checking modes. However, whether this quantitative change can bring about a qualitative change in the voice of artificial intelligence for "senior humans" like Zhang Xuefeng in college entrance examination recommendations still requires the emergence of one or two blockbuster applications or representative cases.

Author: Tao Ran; Source public account: AI Blue Media (ID: 1089327)