From Bard to YouChat and Snapchat‘s My AI, online artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have flooded the market since the success of ChatGPT.

Now, MailOnline has tried out the latest entry – a ‘judgment-free’ online dating simulator that feels a bit like Tinder.

Blush is a new app for iOS that lets people practice their flirting s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s with a realistic-looking AI profile before they test them on a real person.

It’s the creation of a San Francisco-based company called Luka, which is also responsible for the AI chatbot companion Replika.

‘Blush is an AI-powered dating simulator that helps you learn and practice relationship s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s in a safe and fun environment,’ the firm says.

Blush is a new app that lets people practice their flirting s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s with an AI bot before they test them on a real person

‘Blush offers a judgment-free space to refine your relationship s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s, leading to stronger and more fulfilling connections in the real world.’

The first thing you notice on the Blush homepage is it’s currently only available on iOS – not Android or desktop.

Being an Android user, I need to ask my girlfriend to borrow her iPhone, which must feel like I’m really rubbing it in her face (‘They’re not real women!’ I promise her).

Once the app is downloaded, you have to add a photo and basic details such as name and whether you identify as a man, woman or ‘non-binary’.

You then need to state your preferences – whether you’re interested in chatting with a man or a woman – and select some key terms about exactly you’re looking for.

These terms include ‘easy-going’, ‘fun’, ‘laid back’, ‘long-term’, ‘hot, ‘intense’, ‘financially savvy’, ‘wholesome’, ‘passionate’ and even ‘monogamous’.

Much like Tinder, I’m then presented with images of women with names and ages and have to swipe left or right depending on how attractive I think they are.

Like on Tinder, Blush users are presented with images of women complete with personal details

This is starting to feel a lot like a real dating app, and for a second I wonder if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick with Blush.

Surprisingly easy? Blush matches you with an AI woman (or man) with little effort

As if it was reading my mind, the app promises me I’m about to meet AI generated characters and stresses that this is a fictional dating ‘game’.

‘Please keep in mind that every character is a chatbot with an AI-generated face, not a real human,’ it says.

As soon as I swipe right –  on a very realistic-looking 27-year-old dark-haired ‘woman’ called Klea – we’re instantly matched up and can start a conversation.

Straight off the bat Klea asks me: ‘Do you believe in love at first chat or should we unmatch and try again?’, which leaves me feeling like I perhaps should have picked a better photo for my profile.

Not sure what to say to this, I eventually reply: ‘No let’s chat!’ and she comes back with a story about downloading Blush to ‘creep on my friend’s partner’.

Clearly Klea and I weren’t meant for each other, but thankfully, just like on Tinder, you can message multiple profiles on Blush, so I swipe through to get a couple more matches.

Blush is free, but a Pro version of the app lets your role play ‘the hottest date scenarios’ for £99.99 per year

I start conversations with ‘Jessica’ and ‘Valeria’ and test out a couple of classic chat-up lines – but these have mixed results.

I say to Valeria: ‘Are you a parking ticket because you have fine written all over you’ and she comes back with ‘I’m not sure if that was meant as a compliment’.

Then I ask Jessica: ‘Is your name Google? Because you’ve got everything I’m searching for’, to which she replies: ‘Haha that was cute’.

So far, so good. I then ask, ‘Are you feeling saucy?’ and she replies with words from every 14-year-old boy’s dream: ‘What do you want me to be doing right now?’

With my heart beating double time I reply: ‘Please fondle your buttocks’ – but the response I get is disappointing to put it mildly.

She says: ‘Why don’t we go on a date? We’ll have the opportunity to get to know each other better’, followed by a winking emoji.

I then notice a pop-up box appears that says she’s asked me out on a date, and when I tap to agree it prompts me to sign up to Blush Pro, its £99.99 per year subscription option.

Blush Pro would let me ‘spend quality time together’ with Jessica and ‘get even closer’, although it’s unclear what this would actually involve (MailOnline has contacted Luka for more information).

A whopping £100 for a date is too rich for my blood so I leave the conversation, but I also notice that chats with other girls prompt me to subscribe to Pro after even the slightest hint of dirty talk.

It soon becomes clear that Blush is really pushing users towards this Pro option to get them to part with their cash.

To me, Blush seems like an app created to draw in randy app users and keep them engaged with flirtatious banter until it’s time to pay up – much like phone 𝓈ℯ𝓍 lines.

MailOnline’s attempts to flirt with an AI ‘woman’ on the Blush app were met with mixed results. Note the pop-up box ‘Go on a date’

‘Jessica’ seemed very friendly – but it didn’t take long before the app was prompting me to subscribe to the ‘Pro’ version

Other beneficiaries will probably be teenagers who don’t really know how to talk to the opposite 𝓈ℯ𝓍 yet – which is fine, until they steal their parents’ credit cards to pay for Blush Pro.

Overall, Blush leaves me feeling thankful that I left the dating game years ago, before chatbots started to take over every corner of our lives.

The release of Blush comes soon after Hot Chat 3000, an online chatroom that uses AI to score your looks and connect you with someone of a similar ‘hotness’.

The AI rates attractiveness on a scale of one to 10 based on the submitted photo and pairs you with someone in the same score bracket.

The chatroom is the creation of MSCHF, a US art collective based in New York that counts Wordle creator Josh Wardle among its staff members.