Some things are decidedlong before we meet.

No, and the structure is different in a way that matters. A dating app hands you a stack of people and leaves the sorting to you — the whole design assumes volume and browsing. There is nothing here to browse. You are introduced to one person at a time, deliberately, with a reason we explain to you both. Nobody can search for you, scroll past you, or collect you. And a first meeting is fifteen minutes on video rather than an evening out, so saying yes costs you very little.

Only someone we have suggested you to, and only once we have. At a suggestion they see your name, your age, your photographs, your neighborhood, your work, your religious life, and a short description of yourself that you write and approve before anyone sees it. Your family’s details, your schooling and your references stay closed until you have both said yes. Your conversation with ShidduchAI is different: it is never shown to anybody, at any stage — not to a match, not to a shadchan, not ever. Photographs live in private storage and are served through links that expire within minutes — there is no public address for any image.

Fifteen minutes on video, at a time you both pick. That is the whole of it. Not a date, no phone numbers exchanged, no restaurant to book and nothing to get out of. Meetings are never recorded. It is much easier to say yes to fifteen minutes than to an evening — which is exactly the point. More people meet, and nobody feels committed before they have met.

Yes, if either of you wants one. A shadchan steps in after you’ve both said yes to meeting again: answering questions, speaking with families, and helping arrange a first date properly. A shadchan also carries a no, so neither of you has to deliver or receive one directly. If neither of you wants one, a private chat simply opens.

In layers. Halachic requirements and your stated dealbreakers come first and are absolute — nothing gets past them. Then each of you has to fit what the other is actually looking for, in both directions. Then six weighed factors: religious life and hashkafa, values and life goals, age, family background, how you each think about money, and education. And last, a full read of both profiles — where character, and the way you tell the story of your own life, are treated as a judgement rather than a score. That read can hold a suggestion back; it cannot push one through. The algorithm is proprietary; the research underneath it is published, and we have written up exactly what we do and do not rely on.

That is a fair thing to feel, and we would rather be plain than let you wonder. ShidduchAI telephones you and asks the questions itself. It is not a person, there is nobody listening in, and nobody is reading along. It asks follow-up questions because a real answer tells us more than a checkbox does. You can say you would rather not answer something — that is a complete answer and it moves on — and you can hang up whenever you like and pick it up another time. Nobody you are matched with ever reads the conversation or hears it, and you write your own short description of yourself at the end, in your own words.