I took a chance on Vida.
I took a chance on Vida. Their approach advertises access to date at a more affordable model than most other matchmaking services I've looked at. It's not-conventional, they drive your already existing dating apps for you, which I didn't fully understand until the intake call. It took ~1.5 months to get everything set up. They do use AI to help generate photos based on photo sets you give them. Which I didn't understand until the photo set was presented to me for approval. The team was very willing to make adjustments (i.e. use just actual photos of me) at my request though. Now that we are rolling there has been surprisingly good results. I approve all matches to pursue. The team is able to chat with matches, coordinate/setup dates, and get phone numbers with pretty much no effort from me. Once I have a phone number I take it from there. Overall I'm happy with the direction this is going - but I hope the team continues to refine and evolve the approach. It's important to be more clear about how the system works and the approach, ideally before the intake call.. and disclose the use of AI in the photo department prior to giving me the first look at photos for approval. Looking forward to seeing how this fully plays out.. but excited to work with the team.