Kenya's Essay-Writing Industry Collapsed Two Years After ChatGPT's Launch

For more than a decade, tens of thousands of young Kenyans made a living writing college essays for students in the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Researchers estimated that at least 40,000 people in Nairobi alone were being paid to complete other students' homework at the industry's peak.

That industry has now largely collapsed, undone within two years of ChatGPT's release in late 2022, as students turned to AI tools that produce passable academic prose in minutes. One writer profiled by the Times, Teresios Bundi, moved to Nairobi for university in 2011 and, after graduating, chose essay writing over a career in public health. He charged $40 to $70 per paper and estimates he wrote more than 2,500 essays over twelve years.