Azar has facilitated over 100 billion video chats with its app, which randomly connects strangers around the globe. But until recently, the Seoul-based app — which shares a parent company, Match, with Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid — hasn’t been available in the U.S.
The U.S. market could be tough to crack. For millennials who grew up with access to platforms like Omegle and Chatroulette, random video chat apps were like Ouija boards. But instead of conjuring the jumpscare-inducing signs of a specter, these apps were known for yielding unexpectedly pantless men, a horror perhaps more frightening than the supernatural.
Omegle shut down last year as part of a settlement in a $22 million sex trafficking lawsuit. Chatroulette technically still exists, though South Park disparaged the site as a haven for sexual predators, and Salon eulogized it in 2010 (“Cause of death: penises”).
Yet, with a mostly Gen Z user base, Azar benefits from what these younger web surfers don’t remember. And, crucially, Azar is at least trying to ward off nonconsensual nudity with a mix of human and AI-based moderation.
“The automated tools are fired off first, whether it’s an image that is inappropriate, whether it’s audio, or whether it’s in text form, and then that’s when it’s triggered for the human moderator,” CEO Linda Kim told TechCrunch. “So the human moderators then immediately get notified to go investigate and take action.”
Kim moved from the U.S. to Seoul two years ago to head up Azar, which is the flagship product of Hyperconnect, a video company that also operates a livestreaming service called Hakuna Live. Match acquired Hyperconnect for $1.73 billion in 2021.
Despite being part of a dating juggernaut like Match, Azar is not explicitly a dating app, though some people use it for that purpose. The app, which works on web and mobile, is free to use, but with in-app purchases, users can more finely toggle who they want to see based on gender and location. Azar may match people who don’t speak a common language, but its text chat feature automatically translates messages.
“Our key user is mostly the younger generation, the Gen Zs,” Kim said. “They really want that real-time, spontaneous conversation and meeting somebody.”
Kim has seen firsthand that the user base skews young. She herself uses the platform, sometimes to solicit travel tips for places she plans to visit, like Taiwan.
“I actually never disclose that I’m the CEO of the company or anything, so I just pretend I’m just another user,” she said. “Sometimes they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re an old person. What are you doing on this platform?’”
Kim isn’t old, as these rude chat partners tell her, but she is experienced enough that she worked in worldwide developer relations at Apple when the App Store first launched in 2008. She then was the manager of the games and social networking categories on the App Store before moving over to Zynga. Her experience diverged a bit from there, taking her to both makeup and diaper companies, but she’s now made her way back to social apps.
Apps like Azar cater toward Gen Z because it’s a generation that’s been plagued by loneliness. Amy Wu, founder of the AI-based mental health app Manifest, recently told TechCrunch that “there will be unicorns that emerge … to address the loneliness epidemic.”
Still, the prospect of getting thrown into a face-to-face conversation with a stranger might seem intimidating for some people. Users can apply AR features to mask their face, although when I used one of these filters to disguise myself, my chat partner said, “I don’t want to talk to a zebra.” Fair enough.
As Azar seeks to establish a foothold in the U.S., the app will have to overcome the dubious reputation around random video chat apps.
“Safety really is a concern in the U.S. market,” Kim said. “I think given the emphasis that we have in safety, and the mission that we have of really investing in safety … I truly believe that the U.S. market will embrace Azar.”