Schmooze, the Elevation Capital-backed viral GenZ dating app, has taken a significant step forward with the launch of its AI-powered Personal Matchmaker, Riya.
Riya interacts directly with users and asks a wide range of questions covering lifestyle, personal preferences, humor style, relationship goals, values, and family orientation to understand each user’s personality and preferences in depth. Based on these insights, the AI matchmaker recommends highly compatible matches tailored to the user’s unique “type.”
The launch builds on Schmooze’s core philosophy of keeping dating fun and stress-free. Staying true to this approach, Riya gathers insights about users in a conversational and natural manner, sometimes casually asking about their weekend plans or a party they enjoyed, while quietly understanding deeper compatibility markers.
The concept of an AI Personal Matchmaker was inspired by another AI-driven feature that Schmooze recently launched. A few months ago, the platform introduced People Finder, an AI-powered search tool that allowed users to describe the kind of person they wanted to meet. Through this feature, the team observed that users were becoming extremely specific about their ideal matches. Searches included detailed descriptions such as “an extrovert who works in tech and likes to cook” or “6ft, chiseled jaw, Malayali, who likes to relax in free time.”
These user behaviors highlighted an important insight for the founders: while some users prefer discovering matches organically, many others have a very clear and detailed picture of their ideal partner. However, most dating platforms still rely on algorithms that show users a limited set of profiles that are only likely to match.
Recognizing this gap, the team explored how advancements in AI-especially voice models – could enable more personalized matchmaking. At the same time, the company noticed that users were increasingly comfortable interacting with AI, often spending significant time on voice conversations with AI companions. These trends led Schmooze to develop its own AI-powered matchmaker that could speak directly with users, understand their preferences, and identify matches that genuinely fit their expectations.
To support this system at scale, Schmooze built its own end-to-end voice AI stack and underlying large language model. The system has been fine-tuned using extensive dating-related data generated across Schmooze’s AI features and product ecosystem. By developing its own infrastructure instead of relying on third-party models such as OpenAI or Claude, the company aims to maintain cost efficiency while handling high call volumes. This approach also ensures that user data and privacy remain protected within the platform.
Schmooze is currently rolling out the Personal Matchmaker feature in phases, allowing the team to continuously learn and improve the system before expanding it to the entire user base. So far, more than 300,000 users have already interacted with Riya. Early indicators show promising results. Users who interact with the Personal Matchmaker are demonstrating 2× higher retention compared to others on the platform.
Although the system is designed to keep conversations short and engaging, many users appear to enjoy speaking with Riya and explaining their preferences in detail. Some calls have lasted as long as 40–50 minutes, with users even asking Riya for suggestions on date ideas. In response, Schmooze has also introduced a feature that provides customized date recommendations.
The idea behind Schmooze itself traces back to founder Vidya Madhavan’s experience as a student at Stanford. She observed that many of her peers were growing frustrated with dating apps that prioritized superficial photo-based matching. This insight led Vidya Madhavan and co-founder Abhinav Anurag to build Schmooze, a platform where memes serve as the first layer of personality discovery. By understanding a user’s humor and vibe through meme interactions, the platform aims to match people based on deeper personality compatibility.
The introduction of Riya represents the next evolution of this vision.
Schmooze’s growth trajectory has also been notable. In a market where most domestic dating apps have struggled to compete with global platforms such as Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, Schmooze has grown to over 5 million users and recorded 3.5 billion meme swipes, which power its personality-driven matching system. The platform also reports a gender ratio that is three times better than most mainstream dating products in India, an indicator of trust and engagement within the community.
Schmooze has also gained international recognition and was featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as a dating app to watch among GenZ audiences who are increasingly fatigued by traditional swipe-based platforms.
