Qloo Brings Cultural AI to BLK, Chispa, Upward and Yuzu

The integration brings cultural artificial intelligence to dating apps to deliver a more personalized and relevant user experience.

NEW YORK, July 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- BLK, Chispa, Upward, and Yuzu are now using Qloo's Cultural AI across their platforms to bring a new level of personalized matchmaking. This technology helps users share more about who they are through their interests in music, film, travel, and more, leading to deeper, more meaningful connections. Since testing began, Yuzu users who added "Currently Into" (powered by Qloo) that allows users to showcase their hobbies and interests have seen a 70% increase in Likes, showing how cultural insights can spark authentic engagement.

Qloo is an AI-powered cultural intelligence platform that maps the relationships between millions of entities across music, film, fashion, podcasts, and more—essentially modeling how taste works. Its API surfaces hyper-relevant suggestions without relying on personal identifiers, enabling a real-time search experience where users can add any interest to their profile. Each interest is interactive and comes with a brief description from Qloo's proprietary knowledge graph, helping users express what matters to them and discover more meaningful connections based on shared cultural signals rather than surface-level traits.

"Users don't just want to be seen—they want to be understood," said Rahim Makani, Director of Product at Affinity Apps. "With Qloo's API, we're giving people the tools to represent themselves with greater texture and individuality, while unlocking smarter discovery across the platform."

This integration is a key step in Affinity Apps' vision to build more human-centered digital profiles—ones grounded in personality, not just proximity or networks. With Qloo insights contributing to the new profile builder across BLK, Chispa, Upward, and Yuzu, users will be able to explore a deeper, more personalized way to connect.

"This integration with Affinity is a perfect example of how cultural intelligence can help support more meaningful digital interactions,"  said Coby Santos, Chief Product Officer at Qloo. "We're proud to partner with Affinity to help people connect more authentically through what they love."

About Match Group's Affinity Apps
Match Group's Affinity Apps help people in specific, often underserved communities make meaningful connections. Our portfolio includes BLK®, Chispa®, Upward®, Yuzu™, and Salams®, each purpose-built to celebrate culture, faith, and shared values. With thoughtfully designed platforms and experiences, Affinity Apps create more focused spaces where users can feel seen, supported, and empowered to connect. As part of Match Group, our mission is to bring people closer together by honoring what makes them unique.

About Qloo
Qloo is the leading AI company demystifying the intricacies of global consumer tastes and preferences. The company operates one of the world's most robust catalogs of notable people, places, things, and interests, coupled with a consumer behavior and sentiment database containing more than 10 trillion unique signals and zero Personally Identifiable Information (PII). By leveraging cutting-edge AI models, Qloo unlocks the value of these databases to understand and predict audiences' interests and affinities with unrivaled accuracy. Since 2012, Qloo's award-winning Taste AI technology has helped multinational companies — including Netflix, Starbucks, JCDecaux, and Michelin — drive growth by powering personalized customer experiences and large language models, superior recommendations, data-driven marketing strategies, and advanced audience intelligence. Qloo is the parent company of TasteDive, a cultural recommendation engine and social community that allows users to discover what to watch, read, listen to, and play based on their existing unique preferences.

Media Contact:
Kathy Osborne
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SOURCE Qloo Inc.