James
Finding the right activity companion depends on both a shared interest and compatible timing. Someone may want to see an exhibition this weekend, play badminton after work or find company for a city walk, while the people they know have different schedules or interests.
Chinese AI social platform Soul App is addressing this need with its recently launched instant interest groups. The feature uses AI to identify short-term social intentions expressed in posts and helps users find activity companions around a shared plan.
According to the platform’s analysis, around one million posts each week express an immediate desire to do something with others, rather than simply sharing daily life or seeking an ongoing social connection. More than 7% of these posts point directly to offline scenarios including dining, sports, exhibitions, city walks, board games and watching sporting events.
A growing pattern of activity-based companionship
The 2026 Social Trends Report, jointly released by Soul App’s Just So Soul Institute and Fudan University, describes young people’s social patterns as becoming more lightweight, flexible and centered around specific activities.
In 2025, more than 3.746 million users published 8.325 million “dazi”-related posts on Soul App, generating more than 9.8 billion views.
“Dazi” refers to a companion for a particular activity or interest. The connection centers on something people want to do together, such as walking, having coffee, visiting an exhibition or playing a sport.
Shared interests have long been an important basis for connection on Soul App. Instant interest groups make that approach more specific. Instead of finding people around an interest in general, users can find activity companions around a particular plan, time and context.
Turning shared plans into instant groups
Before the feature, these requests were scattered across posts, comments and messages, and users largely relied on others noticing and responding.
When a user publishes a post, Soul App’s AI system analyzes the text in real time. The system can distinguish a general interest in badminton from a plan to play after work today. It looks for time signals such as “tonight,” “this weekend” or “after work.”
This helps identify users who share an interest and want to do it around the same time. When the system detects a clear short-term interest, it can extract information such as time, location and interest tags. The post can then be distributed more precisely to users in a similar area and time period with relevant interests. As people respond, a temporary group can be created around the activity so they can discuss the plan together.
From social needs to AI-powered features
Soul has continued to develop its products around changing social needs expressed by users on the platform. Interests and emotional expression have long been important to how Soul App connects people, with AI helping the platform better understand these signals and users’ social intent.
Instant interest groups apply these AI capabilities to a specific product need. Soul has developed an interest graph, AI-driven recommendation system and its proprietary SoulX model to understand user expression, interest preferences and social intent. Soul App has also introduced AI-assisted chat and other AI-supported social features.
The 2026 Social Trends Report describes young people as looking for companions for different moments and situations in life. These companions may share an interest, offer understanding and support, or simply take part in an experience together.
With instant interest groups, Soul App moves from helping users meet people with shared interests to helping them find someone who is on the same wavelength at a particular moment.
