Gen Z dating apps like Ditto ditch swiping in favor of AI matchmaking

The Rise of AI Matchmaking in Gen Z Dating Apps

Ditto's founders, Allen Wang and Eric Liu, are part of the Gen Z generation that is disillusioned with swipe-based dating apps. They saw firsthand how people were getting tired of endless swiping and small talk, and they wanted to create something that would help their peers connect more genuinely. By using AI to match people based on their personality, interests, and dating preferences, Ditto aims to remove the friction and awkwardness that often comes with traditional dating apps.

The onboarding process for Ditto is unique in that users text their way through it. They start with basic biographical information like their name, gender, and birth date, and 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. The Ditto algorithm tries to match people not based on similar hobbies and interests, but rather what those hobbies and interests say about who someone is.

For example, if there's a guy who's really into rock climbing, skydiving, and outdoor sports, and a girl who's into hip hop, streetwear, and skateboarding, then even though those hobbies don't look similar on the surface, the AI can tell you deeper down that both are very adventurous and individualistic. This is actually the core reason why people will find chemistry with each other, and so basically Ditto's claim is that chemistry is actually predictable with the right signals.

Then, every Wednesday at 7 p.m., Ditto messages users with their match for the week. It comes with the person, it comes with a time, it comes with a location, and the users simply just need to show up and date each other and come back. We'll collect more feedback about the date, and then improve our understanding of the user, and send them to a better next date.

Ditto has 150,000 signups, and Wang says that out of all the matches that are connected via Ditto, about 20% of those matches end up going out on a date. With any dating app, and especially one that minimizes the time between matching and going out, it can be hard to discern the safety of a situation — is the person you're meeting really who they say they are? For now, while Ditto is only available at a few dozen colleges, there's a built-in vetting process in which you know that someone is a student at your university with a .edu email.

Ditto is focused on figuring out how to grow to more schools — and eventually beyond just college — while scaling safely. Even for the most established and well-funded dating apps, this is a challenging endeavor. But Ditto does have $9.2 million in seed funding to work with from investors like Gradient, Peak XV, and Scribble. Wang said, '99% of the investors just reached out to us through inbound, because we were pretty big on LinkedIn and Twitter for a bit. Even Duolingo's co-founder Severin [Hacker] reached out to me saying, 'Hey, love your mission, I really like what you do, let's hop on a call.'

Ditto has been able to establish this notoriety through its irreverent marketing, like videos of robot stunts . Now based in San Francisco, Ditto has 12 full-time employees, but they're also hiring a 'chief yacht officer' to throw promotional parties (yes, this is a legitimate job listing). 'Our users are college students, and they can smell corporate marketing from a mile away,' Wang said. 'But the stunts are the top of the funnel, not the product … Viral moments get college kids to look; a good first date is what makes them stay.'