The growing use of AI in television broadcasting is forcing China’s top journalism schools to reconsider what skills still set human anchors apart.
Just four years into her career as a news anchor, Han Rubing watched six AI-generated avatars take the screen — blinking, nodding, and speaking in the same crisp cadence she had worked so hard to perfect.
For eight nights during the Chinese New Year, the AI anchors appeared behind a glossy desk in a virtual studio on Hangzhou Culture Radio Television Group’s flagship news program. It was the first time a Chinese broadcaster had handed its entire holiday primetime lineup to artificial intelligence.
The broadcast quickly drew millions of views on Chinese social media, with many — including Han — struck by how lifelike the anchors looked.
“Their AI was so realistic, you could barely tell if it was the original anchor,” 26-year-old Han, a news anchor at a television station in northern China, tells Sixth Tone.
At the time, she only saw it as a novelty and a practical workaround — it let human anchors go home for the holidays without cutting the broadcast. “And it wasn’t like the AI permanently replaced anyone afterward,” she recalls.
A GIF shows AI anchors appearing on Hangzhou Culture Radio Television Group’s flagship news program during the Chinese New Year holiday. From @杭州綜合頻道 on WeChat
Just weeks later, however, one of her own station’s programs announced plans to swap a human host with an AI model. The exception was beginning to look like the rule.
Across China, broadcasters from national state-run network CCTV to regional stations in Zhejiang, Hunan, and Shanghai have launched their own AI anchors, including fully digitized clones of well-known hosts. The rollout tracks with a 2021 plan by China’s broadcasting regulator for deeper integration of AI, VR, AR, and cloud tools to modernize production and cut costs.
For media executives, the appeal is clear: AI anchors don’t take breaks, don’t slip up, and cost a fraction of what human anchors do. They can run 24/7, maintain consistency, and free up staff for off-camera roles.
But inside newsrooms, the reaction is more cautious.
Video by Ding Rui and Lü Xiao/Sixth Tone
While some broadcast professionals fear AI could displace anchors with limited on-air skills and intensify competition for students trying to break in, others stop short of calling it a replacement. Machines, they argue, lack the warmth, emotional timing, and spontaneity audiences expect — and remember.
“For anchors whose roles are limited to reading the news, there’s now a real need to pivot,” Han says. “It may not be a full replacement, but it’s enough to push people to develop new skills — to shift toward something more.”
Gao Guiwu, director of the audio-visual communication department at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, sees the technology as “a mirror, a touchstone, and a catalyst.”
“It clarifies which parts of the job are mechanical, and which are creative,” he says. “That’s a good thing — it forces us to understand where human value still matters.”
Margin for error
A 2021 graduate of the capital’s Communication University of China — the country’s top school for broadcast majors — Han now works as a rotating anchor at a station in northern China. Her shows are all livestreamed, a format where every word counts and nothing can be undone.
“The pressure is real,” says Han, who hails from the eastern Shandong province. “In a live broadcast, you’re constantly worried about making mistakes. You have to stay sharp and mentally prepared.”
AI avatars modeled on three well-known CCTV hosts. From Weibo
But with advances in AI catching up fast, Han is now also training to host live interviews, aiming to bring spontaneity and nuance that scripted avatars can’t yet match.
“I can’t just be someone who reads the news. But that’s the foundation, and I need to think about how to do it better, to be more vivid and flexible than AI,” she says. “At the end of the day, AI should serve human anchors. It can’t replicate our unique styles or the attitude we bring to the job.”
Despite their flawless delivery, round-the-clock availability, and lower cost, Han says AI anchors still fall short in more dynamic formats, especially civic news and live interviews. “They’re still stiff,” she says. “Just a cold machine delivering the news.”
Che Youlu, a new media editor at Beijing Radio & Television Station and a fellow graduate of Communication University of China, agrees. AI models, she says, can mimic surface patterns — the right pause, emphasis, or inflection — all without an emotional core.
“The Hangzhou AI anchor is impressively human-like,” she says. “But if you’ve worked in this field, you can tell. It’s not a real voice.”
A GIF shows an AI anchor hosting a local news program in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. From @杭州綜合頻道 on WeChat
In professional training, students learn more than just enunciation, Che underscores. They’re taught to listen, to read the script with intention, to adjust for tone and audience — a layer machines can’t match.
Li Hongyan, a professor of broadcasting and anchoring at the Communication University of China, puts it more simply: “AI can read the words. But it doesn’t know what matters.”
Future proof
Even before AI, landing a spot behind a news desk in China was fiercely competitive.
The vast majority of anchors graduate with degrees in broadcasting and anchoring — a uniquely Chinese major focused on vocal delivery, posture, and high-standard Mandarin.
While he doesn’t share exact figures, Li says the Communication University of China receives over 10,000 undergraduate applications for broadcasting each year — with an acceptance rate of just 1%.
Broadcasting students practicing in a simulated studio in Beijing, 2015. VCG
A broadcasting student practices outdoors in Beijing, 2015. VCG
Now, amid a national push to integrate AI, universities are raising the bar. Students are no longer just taught how to read the news; they’re also trained to host unscripted programs, shift across formats, and think on camera — skills that AI still struggles to mimic.
“We’ve never been a conservative field,” says Li, adding that the school began broadening its curriculum years ago. Today, students take classes geared toward a wide range of roles: from talk shows and literary programs to live variety and reality TV.
“Our students now need to understand journalism, literature, linguistics, audiovisual production, computer science, and even large language models and AI applications,” says Li. “It’s no longer enough to just speak well.”
Among the next generation of anchors is Ma Zhiyao, a first-year broadcasting major at the Communication University of China. It’s still early in the job hunt cycle, but he’s already thinking about how to stand out.
“AI anchors are an inevitable trend, and we shouldn’t reject technological innovation,” Ma, also from Shandong, tells Sixth Tone. “As students, we need to focus on building strengths that make us truly irreplaceable.”
AI avatars developed by a technology company for use in television broadcasting. From @杭州綜合頻道 on WeChat
Others are casting a wider net. Zhang, a graduate student in the same program, began sending out job applications in his first year to tech firms and media startups, along with legacy media institutions. He eventually accepted an offer from a talent agency.
“I don’t consider myself particularly outstanding by CCTV’s broadcasting standards, so I didn’t really plan to go down that path,” says Zhang, using only his surname for privacy. “Besides, a lot of my classmates have switched to other careers.”
But Che Youlu never considered walking away. Now a new media editor, she still hopes to return to being in front of the camera.
“I’ve always believed that while AI may take over some entry-level jobs, it will never replace the top-tier anchors,” she says. “Audiences don’t just recognize a person’s appearance — they connect with their ideas and values.”
And with livestreaming, short video, and emerging platforms on the rise, both Li and Renmin University’s Gao believe the demand for skilled communicators is growing. AI, they argue, should push students to hone what machines still can’t: emotional nuance, presence, and personality.
“We’re not afraid of machines becoming more human,” Li says. “What we should worry about is becoming more like machines — or worse, falling behind them. That’s when it really becomes a problem.”
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: Screenshots show AI-generated TV anchors. From Weibo)
