Soul App, a leading Chinese social platform, is all about creating meaningful and emotionally resonant connections. To do so, the platform has extensively integrated AI into its various features and aspects, and in the process, Soul has transformed the way users interact online.
The team of Soul App embraced AI early on and used it as a catalyst for social innovation. This helped the app to gain quick and significant traction among China’s Gen Z, not to mention that this foresight also paved the way for Soul’s prominent presence at the ChinaJoy AIGC Conference (2024).
During the conference, the Vice President and Product Leader of Soul App, Che Bin explained the company’s unique take on AI applications in social scenarios. At the outset, he clarified that Soul’s aim is to create social experiences that not only facilitate connections but also lead to meaningful interactions.
Che Bin said that in order to achieve this goal, Soul App uses a three-pronged approach when leveraging AI to change the dynamics of social interaction. He also stated that the emphasis is on understanding users’ emotional needs, beyond traditional measures of social media success such as user engagement metrics.
He explained that the novel strategy focuses not only on the core technology and its capabilities but also on the users and their requirements and on the ecosystem in which the users interact with the technology. When discussing the “user” aspect of the trifold approach, Che Bin stated that for Soul, the foundation of any innovation lies in the understanding of people.
He further elaborated that at the end of the day, the aim is to improve user experiences, with a focus on creating those “AHA moments”—when users realize the unique value of the application. To get to this outcome, the engineers at Soul App pay special attention to what users want and expect. This information is gleaned from periodic surveys that offer insight into Gen Z’s impressions, attitudes, and thoughts pertaining to various aspects of digital socialization.
For instance, the 2024 Gen Z AIGC Attitude Report by the Just So Soul Research Institute (the research division of Soul App) revealed that a growing number of young people are rethinking their relationships with machines. The survey also showed that a significant number of respondents (60%) believed that AIGC products could help alleviate loneliness while around 33% were open to forming friendships with AI. This insight shed light on the potential for AI not just as a tool, but as a companion.
Also, the responses to the survey made it clear that AI can no longer simply be about automating tasks. It was evident that the technology had to be leveraged to foster relationships and provide emotional support. This brought up a logical question – Can any AI-powered application offer what young users are looking for without the ability to understand and respond to human emotions?
Che Bin gave a straightforward answer to this question when he said that the AI algorithms of today already have ample general intelligence but they lack emotional intelligence. He explained that particularly in social scenarios, for AI as a technology to reach its full potential, the models need to have as much EQ (emotional quotient) as IQ.
And this is where work on the technology aspect of the three-pronged strategy comes into the picture. Che Bin also noted that the recognition of human emotions has to be multimodal because human sentiments are not just conveyed through spoken words. He explained that the Soul App team largely relies on in-house tech to turn this vision into reality.
The platform’s proprietary language model, Soul X, and its large voice model are central to creating these emotionally intelligent interactions. They have been integrated into various innovative applications, including AI-assisted social networking, an AI companionship application, and even AI-driven gaming. Che Bin said that by harnessing the power of large models with anthropomorphic attributes, Soul aims to create interactions that feel natural and life-like.
He further explained that the integration of AI with high EQ ensures that users not only engage with the platform but also derive emotional satisfaction. He cited the example of Soul’s humanoid chatbot, “AI Goudan, which has been designed to provide personalized, warm interactions. In a nutshell, these developments signify a shift in AI’s role in the social scenario. The technology is no longer being used as a mere facilitator of social interactions, instead, it has been enabled to become an active participant in building relationships.
Finally, when talking about the interplays of users and AI technology in an optimal ecosystem, Che Bin said that the ceiling for simple dialogue-driven social interactions is low as Gen Z craves more engaging environments where interactions can be multifaceted. Since Soul aims to redefine the social environment, it was only natural for the platform to heed to this user demand by blending traditional social experiences with gamification.
A perfect example of this is Soul App’s Werewolf Awakening game, which integrates social and gaming elements. Users can play the classic game alongside AI agents, which provides a dynamic, fun, and emotionally engaging experience. This combination of gaming and social interaction caters to users’ desire for more diverse and enriched online environments.
In conclusion, Che Bin emphasized that for Soul App the ultimate goal is to achieve Product-Market Fit (PMF) by deeply understanding user needs, continuously enhancing AI’s emotional intelligence, and evolving social environments.
He ended his keynote by saying that for Soul the future of AI in the social sense is not just about connecting people, rather, it’s about creating meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences that enhance the quality of those connections. Hence, by understanding the interplay between users, AI technology, and the environment, Soul App is essentially setting the stage for a new era in social networking where emotional intelligence, rather than raw processing power, will define success.
