China Toyoshima, CEO of Aill Inc., a Tokyo-based startup, launched the Aill goen app in November 2020.

Faced with declining birth rates, and employees working from home with no time for searching out love, Japanese companies have hit on a new method to get romance back into their lives. About 800 Japanese organizations have signed up for Aill goen, an AI-powered app that promises to play matchmaker. Result: Happier, more productive employees. (Kyodo News)

Corporate match-making

A somewhat clunky translation of lines from the website reads like this:

• “A good relationship exclusively for employees of a reliable company and a love that will not fail with AI navigation.”
• “This is the world’s first AI romance navigation app that can only be used by single employees of companies whose welfare services are targeted at “Aill”.
• “AI navigates from encounters outside the company to relationships.”

Corporate cupids that have signed up include Mizuho Bank, Ltd., NTT DoCoMo, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation (NTT East), East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Mainichi Shimbun, etc.

The signing companies have effectively created a pool of single employees who may be considered eligible due to the very fact that they work for these organizations, doing away with a basic screening process. Employees also are assured that their profiles are on “a secure and safe platform.”

 China Toyoshima, CEO of Aill Inc., the Tokyo-based startup that launched the service in November 2020, says she aimed to design a platform that would serve the twin purposes of helping employees restore a work-life balance and thereby improve their effectiveness in jobs.

AI helps with the M-F interaction!

What’s the role of AI in Aill goen?

AI steps in when the interaction between two prospective daters looks like cooling off.

It offers suggestions about when to ask the other person for a date and also tips about how to break the ice or to keep the conversation going!

Toyoshima says the AI algorithm could “coax a man to ask a woman out on a movie date or suggest he wait a while (to ask) if it judges that it’s too soon to make a move.”

The AI appears to be working because 76% of active users who had utilized the app’s AI support were able to arrange dates.

Aill goen’s features include a “pair compatibility” chart and a bar that shows in real time how much the opposite sex appears to be liking the user – for this the AI monitors the progress of the chat.

“It is better to meet people after understanding them to some extent and knowing how much they like you,” Toyoshima said.

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