Valentine’s tech: Entrepreneurs create love app, robot bartenders

Entrepreneur Tal Zlotnitsky wants to see couples continue their romantic spark and facilitate open dialogues, and he is embracing this goal by creating an app. 

Zlotnitsky’s AI-powered gamified relationship wellness app, Our.Love, uses machine learning, relationship science and gaming mechanics to create experiences for couples to learn how to better communicate and have a long, healthy relationship. 

“We want to be the WebMD of love,” Zlotnitsky said during Florida-Israel Business Accelerator’s virtual Robots and Romance event on Wednesday. 

The Tampa-based entrepreneur was born in Israel, where he was known as a child singer and was has been featured on the show Sesame Street. His parents uprooted from Israel in the mid 1980s to start a new life in the United States. 

Zlotnitsky has developed several businesses, most recently serving as the CEO of iControl Data Solutions. However, he felt it was time to launch a business that could be impactful in a different arena. 

“Over the last few years, I started to question my impact was as profound as I hoped it would be. I founded Our.Love first and foremost because I wanted to love better in my own life,” Zlotnitsky said. “I think I wouldn’t be in the same position I am in today if I had known about these skills,” he said, explaining that he came out of a 20-year-long marriage. “I think a lot of damage could have been prevented.” 

FIBA Robots and Romance event moderator Phillip Lanos interviews Our.Love founder Tal Zlotnitsky. Photo: Screengrab

The app launched on Valentine’s Day and is available at iOS and Andriod app stores through a subscription. 

Zlotnitsky said he acknowledges that no one can outsource love technology. However, it’s difficult to not see the role technology can play as a bridge. 

“If we aren’t attempting to incorporate relationship hygiene with love technology into our everyday lives, we are leaving a gap and what often fills that void sometimes is mindless social media,” he said. 

He added how the pandemic has only caused the rate of divorces to skyrocket. 

The relationship wellness app features videos, podcasts and blogs to help manage tough conversations and interactive games. Couples receive scores and feedback on how to improve. 

Couples can also earn “LoveCoins,” which can be used to buy virtual gifts for the users. 

A team of 25 employees operates Our.Love, and co-founder Dr. Richard Safeer, the Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Wellbeing at Johns Hopkins Medicine, is on its board of directors. 

While Zlotnitsky is serving couples by providing an interactive platform, Elad Kobi’s robot bartender is serving up cocktails for lovers. 

Cecilia.ai is the first-ever, AI bartender that’s capable of interacting with customers by using voice recognition. 

The Israel-based startup was formed in 2018 and several months ago, its Cecilia.ai product debuted in the United States, at Florida International University in Miami and can be found at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle. 

Kobi, who has a background in the hospitality sector, said Cecilia.ai has ID verification to ensure someone is of age to consume alcohol and it features a secure payment method. The machine can create 120 drinks per hour and can store 70 liters, according to the startup’s website. 

It can be fully customized for certain brands and colors as well as the cocktails and liquors it can serve. 

“She [Cecilia.ai] can work 24/7, which is the most important thing now with the labor shortage you have in the U.S.,” he said. “She can also serve as a concierge, she can talk with customers about the brand, product.”

The research and development team of Cecilia.ai is based in Israel while the remaining employees are based in Miami as most of the business leads the company received were from Florida. 

People can purchase the machine and do a subscription with a monthly fee. The machine can be leased for roughly $2,000 per month or purchased for roughly $50,000 to $60,000. There’s a subscription fee of $399. 

FIBA’s next event will be the Florida-Israel Agriculture Innovation Summit, in late March.

The inaugural summit spotlights new drones and agrobotics technologies, and hemp and cannabis research and developments in Florida and Israel.

This year’s summit will include experts and researchers from Canada and the Netherlands.