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Texting in the early stages of dating be feel like an art — you have to master the timing, come up with witty banter, and accurately read between the lines.
Now, apps like Rizz exist to help you out.
Rizz co-founder Roman Khaves said he used to share screenshots of texts with a love interest and draft responses in a groupchat with his friends. So he created Rizz to help out people like him. Rizz, an AI-powered app that generates pickup lines and responses, now has a "Decode" feature that analyzes screenshots from your conversations.
The app offers a free trial and subscription for $7 per week or $20 per month. It currently has 7 million downloads and thousands of subscriptions, Khaves told me.
I take pride in being a good texter so when I heard about Rizz, I was eager to test it out and see how it compares. I ended up uploading about 30 screenshots to see how it works.
Khaves said the app is meant for the beginning stages of dating and I've been in a relationship for over a year, so some of the decoding and suggestions weren't as useful for me.
To get a full picture of the app, I uploaded around 30 screenshots of our conversations that covered a range of topics and stages in our relationship.
The "Decode" response often advised me to build "rapport" and suggested meeting up in person, no matter what the topic of conversation was. The overall message was to get to know the person better and take the conversation offline.
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Khaves said Rizz is designed to get people off the dating apps and meeting in real life.
"We kind of move you along this dating journey because otherwise people are just kind of stuck and they kind of just go in circles," Khaves said. "They never end up at the date."
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Overall, the feature worked well. It picked up when there was mutual interest and had solid suggestions on where to steer the conversation. Since the app is meant for the early stages of dating, it often came up with "Decode" responses that advised me to play it cool and said to come across as "relaxed and confident, not desperate."
It also suggested against double texting.
The main limitation of this app is the inability to add context.
You can't upload multiple screenshots at a time and you can't provide any written context. That limits the effectiveness of the "Decode" feature and suggestions for how to respond.
Khaves said Rizz is working on adding a feature that would let users share more information about the person in the screenshot.
I don't think the lack of context is fully negative though. Getting complete analysis for every text could lead some people to become overly reliant on the app. Especially since, unlike your friends, it's available 24/7 and has practically endless suggestions, Khaves said.
Right now, Rizz serves more as a guide rather than a blueprint for dating — and I think that's a good place to be.
After trying Rizz, I was curious how it would compare to other AI chatbots that aren't designed specifically for dating.
I tried the "Decode" approach on Gemini and Character.Ai, which is a platform for interacting with AI characters. I chose to interact with a relationship coach chatbot on Character.Ai. Gemini has the option to upload screenshots so it provided the most similar type of service, but it was more thorough and offered a deeper analysis with action items.
Character.AI doesn't offer the ability to upload screenshots, so instead I came up with an imaginary scenario and asked it how to respond. It asked good follow-up questions and provided a more concise version of advice.
Although chatbots like Gemini or Character.Ai provided more thorough dating advice and suggestions, I would probably be more likely to use an app like Rizz that's built and branded for dating purposes.
But if I were going to purchase a subscription for $20 a month, it would need to be personalized to my dating needs and preferences and offer complete dating coach services.
