Can AI improve the dating app market? A new dating app called Sitch aims to find out by leveraging human expertise in matchmaking to power its AI model.
Today’s dating apps bank on the speed of onboarding and having millions of options. Users create profiles within seconds by uploading photos and answering simple questions. The apps then rely on basic info and feedback from users’ swipes to find them potential matches.
Sitch aims to take a more thoughtful approach with its onboarding process and uses large language models (LLMs) to bring a human matchmaker’s expertise to the dating app experience, helping people find potential matches without swiping.
The startup was co-founded by Nandini Mullaji, whose knack for the dating market comes from her grandmother, also a matchmaker. She said that while companies like Match and Bumble dominate the space, people are still unsatisfied and not getting the matches they want.
“Matchmaking is a data problem. I have been good at matchmaking because I had so much more information about two people than a dating app would have. The data in those apps is insufficient to tell you if two people will have long-term compatibility,” Mullaji said.
Image Credits: Sitch
Mullaji, a Stanford Business School grad, has worked on various dating and education-related projects, including being involved with Bumble’s launch in India. Co-founder Chad DePue was CTO of the anonymous social network Whisper and then worked at Snap.
Mullaji noted that, up until recently — when large language models (LLMs) became more commonly available — it was hard to scale the human-in-the-loop experience of matchmaking. DePue added that the startup’s goal is to extract data from profiles and pictures using LLMs and show personalized matches.
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Essentially, Sitch built an AI version of Mullaji that helps users onboard by asking them details using almost 50 questions, which they can answer through text or voice.
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