The AI-powered dating app changing the way Indians look for love
- Betterhalf, a matchmaking app for Indian spouse seekers, uses algorithms to determine emotional, intellectual and social compatibility
- There is plenty of competition in the country’s new AI matchmaking space, including some of its traditional matrimonial giants such as Matrimony.com
Pawan Gupta wasn’t having any luck finding a match. The 31-year-old MBA graduate wanted to get married and scoured dating apps and Indian matrimonial websites. Yet after four years of looking and dating, he was no closer to walking around the sacred fire typical of the Hindu marriage ceremony.
So the alumnus of the MIT Sloan School of Management decided to build an AI-powered matchmaking app, one that would determine emotional, intellectual and social compatibility. He teamed up with engineer Rahul Namdev to create Betterhalf, which employs a wide swathe of data to figure out who could be successfully matched for marriage.
The service is starting to have success. Manoj Kumar Singh, 32, turned to Betterhalf after years of failures with traditional matchmaking and dating websites. He was paired up with an HSBC executive he found kind and caring; they were married within months.
“Over four years, I thought I’d tried everything,” Singh recounted telling friends when he first heard of Betterhalf. “After so many frustrating attempts, an AI-based app helped find me a wife.”
AI systems are flourishing in dating apps the world over, using deep-learning to analyse users’ Facebook posts or tweets to gauge how compatible they would be for each other.