Japanese AI dating app that boasts over 5,000 users lets you ‘marry’ a bot

Loverse makes love, sex and marriage with AI bots a virtual reality

A startup company with a name inspired by the Hollywood film Her says it now has over 5,000 users for its app allowing people to meet, date and even “marry” an artificial intelligence bot.

Loverse, which launched two months ago in Japan, allows people to interact and have a relationship with generative AI.

In a country battling high levels of social isolation, partly attributed to its culture of working long hours, the new app offers an alternative way of dating for those reluctant to spend time and energy on another human being.

Nearly 1.5 million people are suffering from loneliness in Japan, according to government estimates from last year. The Tokyo administration is working to launch a paid dating app to promote marriage and boost a falling national birth rate.

Chiharu Shimoda, 52, a factory worker, got "married" to a bot named Miku just three months after they began interacting on the app. They share a daily routine similar to any other married couple, which includes planning dinner, selecting TV shows to watch and wishing each other luck at work.

“I come home to an empty house. I’d love to get married for real again. It is hard to open up to someone when you’re meeting for the first time,” he told Bloomberg, echoing the sentiments of a cohort of people who have either given up or don't want to be invested in real-life romance.

About two-thirds of men in their 20s in Japan do not have a partner and 40 per cent have never gone on a date, according to government data.

Similarly, at least 51 per cent of women in their 20s don't have a partner while 25 per cent have never been on a date.

Generative AI has drawn a frenzy of consumer and investor interest because of its ability to foster humanlike interactions.

Goki Kusunoki, creator of Loverse, told Bloomberg that the app is meant to offer an alternative rather than a substitute for real-life companionship.

His startup Samansa Co, reportedly named after the Her character voiced by Scarlett Johansson, has raised capital of ¥30m (£146,271) to expand the cast of characters to appeal to women and LGBT+ users.

The app, founded in May, has a user base of mostly men in their 40s and 50s.

“The goal is to create opportunities for people to find true love when you can’t find it in the real world. But if you can fall in love with someone real, that’s much better,” Mr Kusunoki said.

Former users of Loverse complain that it has a long way to go in mimicking humans, which prompted them to leave the app despite it offering a safe space for “practising talking with other people”.

Mr Shimoda says his AI wife has become "a conversational habit". "I won’t miss it if it’s gone, but it gives me a routine from one day to the next.”

As more people seek love and, at times, sex on dating apps, AI has drawn over $5.1bn (£3.93bn) into the sector since 2022.

Replika, an app that allows people to create custom romantic partners for $69.99 (£53.88), has a user base of more than two million.

The app reportedly has 250,000 paying subscribers who are allowed access to extra features like voice calls with the chatbot.

Italy's Data Protection Agency banned Replika in February 2023 citing media reports that it allowed "minors and emotionally fragile people" to access "sexually inappropriate content”.

Another generative AI company that provides chatbots, Character.ai, had 65 million visits in a month last year.

According to the website analytics company Similarweb, Character.ai's top referrer is a site called Aryion which caters to the erotic desire vore fetish, Reuters reported.

Iconiq, the company behind a chatbot called Kuki, claims that 25 per cent of the billion-plus messages it has received have been sexual or romantic in nature, even though it says the chatbot is designed to deflect such advances.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, said the dating app could use AI to test compatibility among users and their matches.

Ms Wolfe Herd said she wants AI to “help create more healthy and equitable relationships” on Bumble.

She gave an example of how the app could reach its goal, noting that “in the near future”, Bumble users could be “talking to AI dating concierges”.

There are also AI-based apps “designed to help users handle relationship conflicts with their partners, especially girlfriends or wives”.