AI enters the conversation: A new Seattle app relies on technology to facilitate meaningful human interaction
Ada Jin was suffering from dating app fatigue. He was tired of the endless swiping and hookup mentality prevalent in most legacy forums. He wanted a product that helped facilitate intentional dating and respect people’s time and effort.
So he turned to AI to help people communicate better.
Jin is the founder of Lamu, a Seattle-based digital matchmaking service that relies on artificial intelligence to learn about users and help guide important conversations and dates between matches.
“What we’re trying to solve is to help people find the right person successfully,” Jin said, adding that unlike traditional HR services that can cost thousands of dollars, Lamu is “way, way, way more affordable.”
Lamu charges a $9.99 registration fee to get people into the same area, and to deter fake or fraudulent profiles.
Users start with a ride when they answer questions presented by Lamu’s AI. Jin said they tried to make it fun and interactive, allowing people to interact with the AI, even with voice. AI generates “love points” and searches for matches, revealing one or two per week to avoid multiple choice paralysis. The first disclosed information among the matches includes first name, age, city, occupation and other hobbies or interests.
If matches have a common interest, the AI puts them in a group chat where the match acts as a “wing player” to help things move along. Photos are only shared at this point so that users have the “full picture” before choosing to meet in person.
Jin thinks Seattle is a better place to build such a startup than the Bay Area where he worked as an engineer at Meta and TikTok. He says Lamu and AI can help with the infamous “Seattle freeze” and general loneliness.
While San Francisco has more founders and an investor base that is more active with consumer startups, Jin is invested in the Seattle region’s natural beauty and outdoor pursuits.
Since moving to the city last June, he has been involved in the Seattle community, which helped him meet his founder, Georgiy Lapin, a computer science student at the University of Washington.
Lamu isn’t the only gamer turning to AI to fix broken dating culture. Industry giants are also using AI in various ways to address some of the problems Jin described.
In its first ever product keynote earlier this month, Tinder unveiled a number of features including “Chemistry,” an AI-powered personalization layer that uses a user’s camera scan and interactive Q&As to curate daily recommendations. “Are you sure?” is another tool that uses context-aware AI to detect and suppress inappropriate messages before they are seen. Meanwhile, Bumble recently launched a “Deception Detector,” which the company claims has successfully blocked 95% of accounts identified as spam or scams.
As Lamu grows, Jin is betting that users are ready to trade endless swiping for slower, more deliberate speeds. His goal is not to keep people in place, but to provide one thing that legacy apps often lack: a sense of direction.
“I need more clarity,” Jin said, thinking about the burnout that led him to create the action plan. “I’ll just do it once and find the right person.”
