‘Getting by with AI’: international students’ everyday use of Generative Artificial Intelligence as shadow care
Julia Kantek, Donna James, Thilakshi Mallawa Arachchi, Gerard Michael Goggin · Communication Research and Practice · 2026
International students in Australia navigate intersecting structural pressures, including restricted work rights, housing insecurity, and uneven access to institutional support. These challenges unfold within a neoliberal, post-welfare context where responsibility for wellbeing is increasingly shifted from the state to non-state actors, infrastructures, and digital technologies. This paper examines how international students mobilise Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools to manage everyday challenges under these conditions. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with international students, and the Shadow Care Infrastructuresframework, we highlight how GenAI is enrolled as a digital form of shadow care, enabling students to ‘get by’ amid constrained and fragmented supports. By revealing students’ ‘hidden’ support practices, we show how GenAI operates at the intersection of care and risk, illuminating the structural vulnerabilities that drive AI-mediated support seeking. We conclude by calling for greater attention to formal support systems alongside education that promotes responsible and critical GenAI use.