In China's fiercely competitive dating market, a new company is attracting attention with a bold bet: "Find true love, or your money back."
Hong Kong's "South China Morning Post" reported on the 8th that the dating app "Liangpei AI" (Liangpei AI), launched in July this year, charges users an annual membership fee of 2,000 yuan (approximately NT$9,825). Its biggest selling point is that if the user is not married after three years, the fee will be fully refunded. This bold proposal directly challenges the business model of traditional dating apps that rely on "keeping singles addicted."
According to statistics, China's online dating market will reach RMB 22.6 billion (approximately NT$111 billion) in 2024, with approximately 280 million active users.
Different from traditional dating software that encourages users to chat with multiple people at the same time, "Good Match AI" strictly limits users to "one-to-one" matching. The user must end the current pairing relationship before contacting the next person.
During the registration phase, users must provide their real names and personal photos, and pass strict unmarried status "checks." Operational data shows that in the first month after the platform was launched, this verification mechanism successfully intercepted more than 150 married people trying to register.
New users must first have an in-depth conversation with artificial intelligence (AI) for about 20 minutes to create an exclusive personal profile covering family background, education, occupation, interests, personality, lifestyle and spouse selection conditions.
Zeng Xinxun, the founder of "Good Match AI", once led the development of AI search technology for the chatbot Kimi, a subsidiary of the Chinese AI company "Moonshot AI". In order to found this company, he resolutely resigned last year and gave up stock options that would be valued at tens of millions of yuan in the future.
Zeng Xinxun believes that traditional dating software is at best "Internet Yellow Pages", which only displays basic information but leaves the most difficult filtering work to users. He pointed out that modern young people’s mate selection criteria are becoming more and more subtle, but traditional software’s understanding of users is still rough. This is the gap that AI can fill.
Zeng Xinxun himself met his wife through dating software. At that time, both of them wrote more than 1,000 words in their self-introductions, and after chatting for a day, they decided to meet. He attributes the quick fit to early in-depth understanding, so "Good Match AI" uses in-depth guided conversations to understand the real people behind the screen. He firmly believes that providing too many choices often means that the performance algorithm cannot identify who is the real match.
In addition to matching, the software also has a built-in "AI Strategist" function that can assess relationship problems based on the user's personal profile and chat history. For example, a female user's match suddenly stopped replying. After she consulted the AI, the AI analysis pointed out that "even the busiest person should explain his disappearance within three days." The female user then decisively ended the match and found a more suitable partner soon after.
Currently, "Good Match AI" has accumulated more than 35,000 registered users, with a conversion rate of approximately 9%, and has received angel financing of RMB 15 million (approximately NT$73.69 million). Since the app has just been launched, the actual matching success and marriage rates remain to be tested over time.
Regarding possible loopholes in the refund policy, such as whether users who rarely use the software and end up getting married through other channels are eligible for refunds, Zeng Xinxun insisted that if the software fails to help users find true love, it should not profit from it; if the software does not work, he is willing to refund the money.
Market observers believe that matches selected by AI may lead to more harmonious marriages, thereby improving society's current negative attitude towards love. Some married netizens even joked: "Can they open the 'AI Strategist' to married couples? My husband and I really need an objective buffer zone."
