Kenyans Made a Living Writing College Essays. Then A.I. Arrived.

What the report says

The New York Times World reported that a large number of Kenyans built incomes by writing college essays for students abroad, but that business has sharply weakened as artificial intelligence tools have spread. The piece frames the change as part of a broader disruption to online gig work that has served as an important source of income for workers in Kenya and elsewhere.

According to the Times’ account, the essay-writing market was a global, internet-based job that depended on human writers producing coursework for overseas clients. As A.I. became more widely available, demand for that kind of paid writing fell, leaving many workers with fewer assignments and less reliable earnings.

The development matters because it highlights how quickly A.I. can alter low-barrier digital work that had been accessible to people in countries with limited formal employment opportunities. More broadly, the report suggests that freelance tasks once sustained by remote clients may be especially vulnerable to automation and generative tools.

The story is set in Kenya and was published by the Times in early September 2026. The article presents the decline in essay-writing jobs as both an economic problem for individual workers and a warning sign for the future of global online labor.