This generation of 20-somethings is so disillusioned with swipe-based dating apps that they’ll try literally anything else — even an AI matchmaker. After dropping out of UC Berkeley, Ditto co-founders Allen Wang and Eric Liu set out to build something that would help their peers connect without having to spend hours each week navigating the messiness of apps like Tinder and Hinge.
“As Gen Z ourselves, we were firsthand witnessing the behavioral shift in terms of how people are connecting with each other,” Ditto founder Allen Wang told TechCrunch. “We see that people are getting super tired of all the endless swiping and endless small talk, and they’re really looking for something more genuine in real life.”
Instead of a typical app, college students can sign up for Ditto by texting a certain iMessage number, along with a code. Then, an AI chatbot introduces itself as Ditto, “a dating initiative built by college students who get it… no swiping, no awkward DMs, just real dates every Wednesday at 7 pm.”
Image Credits:Ditto (opens in a new window)
Users text their way through an onboarding process, starting with basic biographical information like their name, gender, and birth date. Then, Ditto gets into more specific questions to understand someone’s personality, interests, and dating preferences. Some users even upload photos of their celebrity crushes to give the AI a sense of their type.
