While walking around campus, students encounter promotional fliers plastered on every surface, promoting anything from film screenings to internship opportunities. Recently, fliers with text reading “Matthew cheated on me, here’s proof” and “selling my ex’s stuff” with QR codes have popped up at various locations around campus. Despite the scandalous messages, the fliers are actually promoting a new dating app called Ditto.
Ditto is a dating app that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) features to set users up on dates. The app was launched in early 2025 and was created by two UC Berkeley dropouts, Allen Wang and Eric Liu.
Ditto is a dating app that was created by two UC Berkeley dropouts and utilizes AI features to set users up on dates. Michelle Wu / Daily Nexus
The app is exclusively for college students and requires users to register with an official university or college email address. It is currently being promoted at college campuses across California.
Fourth-year history of art and architecture major Leili Shirvani signed up for Ditto after seeing a promotional poster. Shirvani said that she heard a lot of people talking about the app and decided to try it out as a “joke.”
“The poster [read] something like ‘Jeremy cheated on me,’ and there was a QR code underneath it,” Shirvani said. “I scanned the QR code and it’s for a dating website. I was like, ‘You know what, I have to give them props for this because this is really funny,’ and I was just curious and a bunch of my co-workers were like, ‘Yeah, you should do it.’”
When users sign up for Ditto, they are prompted to fill out a survey gauging their preferences. Next, users are able to message an AI chatbot over iMessage, which pairs the user with someone who matches their interests and preferences by utilizing reasoning and analysis from large language models (LLM).
According to Shirvani, messaging with Ditto’s AI chatbot feels “very chill” because it is programmed to text in a way similar to an average college student, such as using all lowercase letters and casual vernacular.
“I find it interesting because it’s something I’ve never experienced before. I’m not a particularly big fan of AI, so I feel slightly jaded about the whole thing because I’m like, ‘Wow this is really cool,’” Shirvani said. “It feels like my friends are matching me up with someone random who I’ve never met, but at the same time, it’s literally just an algorithm, so it kind of is a little freaky, so I have mixed emotions.”
Shirvani, who mentioned she is “anti-dating app,” said she finds the user experience that Ditto offers preferable over popular dating apps like Hinge and Tinder. These apps have users swipe on other users’ profiles to “like” and “dislike,” and allows for direct messaging once a match is created.
“I really don’t like the way it’s formatted. I personally don’t like being perceived in that way. I find it very inorganic,” Shirvani said.
Shirvani said she also likes that Ditto tries to foster a more personal connection for users. She said that the user interface and experience on dating apps like Hinge and Tinder makes feelings of judgement more common.
“I’m quite a judgmental person and when I see people on Hinge or Tinder on my friends’ phones, I would see their face and I’d be like ‘Immediately ugly, done — bye,’ I don’t care what they have to say about themselves,” Shirvani said. “I felt like it was a lot more transactional and aggressive whereas Ditto is more done based on emotion and personality. So I feel like I’m perceived as a real human and I have more sensitivity towards other users.”
Once Ditto creates a match, the app creates a poster with user photos and an explanation of why they paired the two. It will also text users a date plan which includes the location, time and details of the potential date. Shirvani mentioned that she likes how Ditto’s method of matching users up preserves privacy and feels more “low stakes.”
“I really liked the fact that this was a really chill survey. You put in your likes and your dislikes, and then they match you,” Shirvani said. “I thought, ‘Oh, it’s different,’ and it’s not like I’m making a profile necessarily since my information isn’t public. It’s only given out to a few specific people if I get matched to them.”
She also said that she enjoyed how Ditto utilizes iMessage to connect users as opposed to an in-app messaging platform, which she said makes the user experience feel more “casual” and “familiar.”
Although Shirvani has not gone on a date from a Ditto match yet, she said she is not opposed to going on one in the future.
“I feel like no matter how much you describe what you want in a person to them, they’re never going to get it quite right,” Shirvani said. “But at the same time, that is also what intrigues me because I think I can be judgmental and I think it’ll give me a different perspective on people I could possibly go on a date with.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 3 of the Feb. 12, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.
