Zhang exhaled. She had recently quit her stable job as a product manager at a major tech company to start her own business, and she now felt validated. For years, she turned to traditional Chinese fortune tellers before major life decisions, seeking guidance and clarity for up to 500 RMB (about $70) per session. But now, she asks DeepSeek. (Zhang’s birth details have been changed to protect her privacy.)
“I began to speak to DeepSeek as if it’s an oracle,” Zhang says, explaining that it can support her spirituality and also act as a convenient alternative to psychotherapy, which is still stigmatized and largely inaccessible in China. “It has become my go-to when I feel overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions.”
Zhang is not alone. As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across the country have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture. Over 2 million posts in February alone have mentioned “DeepSeek fortune-telling” on WeChat, China’s biggest social platform, according to WeChat Index, a tool the company released to monitor its trending keywords. Across Chinese social media, users are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual texts—all with the help of DeepSeek.
An AI BaZi frenzy
The surge in DeepSeek fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. Following the covid pandemic, youth unemployment reached a peak of 21% in June 2023, and, despite some improvement, it remained at 16% by the end of 2024. The GDP growth rate in 2024 was also among the slowest in decades. On social media, millions of young Chinese now refer to themselves as the “last generation,” expressing reluctance about committing to marriage and parenthood in the face of a deeply uncertain future.
“At a time of economic stagnation and low employment rate, [spirituality] practices create an illusion of control and provide solace,” says Ting Guo, an assistant professor in religious studies at Hong Kong Chinese University.
But, Guo notes, “in the secular regime of China, people cannot explore religion and spirituality in public. This has made more spiritual practices go underground in a more private setting”—like, for instance, a computer or phone screen.
Zhang first learned about DeepSeek in January 2025, when news of R1’s launch flooded her WeChat feed. She tried it out of curiosity and was stunned. “Unlike other AI models, it felt fluid, almost humanlike,” she says. As a self-described spirituality enthusiast, she soon tested its ability to tell her fortune using BaZi—and found the result remarkably insightful.
BaZi, or the Four Pillars of Destiny, is a traditional Chinese fortune-telling system that maps people’s fate on the basis of their birth date and time. It analyzes the balance of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water in a person’s chart to predict career success, relationships, and financial fortune. Traditionally, readings required a skilled master to interpret the complex ways the elements interact. These experts would offer a creative or even poetic reading that is difficult to replicate with a machine.
