Marry in three years or get a full refund: Chinese dating app makes a bold promise

A Chinese artificial intelligence-based dating app has arrived with an unusual offer to attract young people in the competitive market for finding a life partner. The app guarantees a full refund of its 2,000 yuan (about 300 US dollars) annual subscription fee if the user does not get married within three years.

The dating platform, called 'Liangpei AI', launched in July this year and has made this bold bet by going against the traditional business model.

In China, the dating app business usually depends on keeping users on the app for a long time. By 2024, the country's dating app market had grown to 22.6 billion yuan (3.4 billion dollars), with around 280 million users in total. Breaking with the customs of this huge market, Liangpei AI has decided to start a completely new kind of business.

On conventional dating apps, users can talk to or swipe through several prospective partners at the same time. Liangpei AI has overturned that idea with a strict 'one-on-one' rule: a user communicates with only one person at a time. Until the existing relationship ends, the user cannot view another profile or talk to anyone new.

Registering on the app requires verification of one's real name through the national identity card, a certificate of being unmarried, and photo verification. In its first month, this anti-fraud system identified and removed more than 150 married people from the platform.

After registering, a new user takes part in a detailed 20-minute AI chat. Through it, the artificial intelligence builds a precise profile of the user's family background, education, career, personal preferences, lifestyle and expectations of a partner.

The app's founder, Zheng Jinsun, previously worked as head of the search technology division of 'Kimi', the chatbot of the Chinese technology company Moonshot AI. Zheng got the idea for a dating product from a candidate during a job interview. He realised that AI's ability to search for information and analyse it logically could make it easier for people to find a partner.

When 'Kimi K2' was released last year, he decided to build his own company and resigned from his job, giving up an opportunity worth crores of taka.

In Zheng's view, traditional dating apps are little more than a showcase of profiles, like a Yellow Pages directory. They leave the hard work of actually getting to know someone to the users themselves. Meanwhile, today's young generation has complex standards for choosing a partner, while the apps' algorithms are very simple. AI is bridging that gap, he believes.

Sharing his personal experience, Zheng said he had found his own wife on a dating app. Because they understood each other deeply, they decided to meet after just one day of talking. That experience led him to add the method of understanding a user deeply to Liangpei AI.

On the refund policy, Zheng said marriage is a specific legal matter that can easily be verified through a government certificate. If a user does not find the partner they want through the app, he believes it is wrong to charge for that service.

The app also has a special feature called 'AI Strategist', which advises users on relationship friction or communication problems. For example, when one woman user received no reply from her partner, she sought the AI's advice. The AI suggested that, however busy someone is, not replying within three days is not a positive sign for a relationship. The woman later ended that connection and found a new partner.

The app now has more than 35,000 registered users, and its conversion rate is around 9 percent. The company has already raised 15 million yuan (2.2 million dollars) in investment.

According to technology and social analysts, this AI-based precise matchmaking could help increase the number of successful marriages in society. It could also play a positive role in overcoming the growing reluctance among the young generation towards relationships.