Ben Guez has attracted a dozen international suitors through an automated script built on OpenClaw, Claude code, and Instagram trial reels.
Guez, a content creator and startup founder, told TechCrunch that the potential is insane. He noted that while not everyone might approve, the method is working.
The automated romance strategy
The approach begins with OpenClaw tracking World Cup match results. After each game, the tool triggers Claude to generate and post a nearly identical Instagram reel using a fixed template.
In the video, Guez stares out a train car window looking dejected. The caption reads: “I can’t believe {COUNTRY} lost… If any {COUNTRY} girls need emotional support… my DMs are open.”
Guez has issued this post, swapping the country name, more than a dozen times. Trial reels do not appear on a creator’s public page, so the history is invisible to casual observers.
Since launching the automation, Guez has gathered over one million views and 200 direct messages in a few days. The volume is notable because his profile states he will only answer DMs sent via Canary, his AI language learning app. This means the women must download his application to reply.
Guez is taking the advice to work smarter, not harder, to a new extreme. However, once these women realise he does not actually care about Tunisian soccer, they might feel played.
“They’re not feeling angry, they’re more impressed, like, ‘Oh, you’re thinking outside of the box, you’re a genuis,'” Guez said. “I think as long as you’re open [about] what you’re doing, I think it’s fine.”
TechCrunch was not able to independently verify the actual reactions of these women. We will have to take Guez’s word for it. We can tell you that Guez is not the only person getting creative with the viral AI assistant. While his methods are more outrageous, others see OpenClaw as a way to streamline the process of setting up dates.
Dating in South Florida
Jeff Weisbein, founder of a tech PR firm, uses OpenClaw to help him figure out where to take dates across different neighborhoods in South Florida.
“I’m meeting women who are in various parts of South Florida, so I don’t know all of the restaurants or things to do,” Weisbein told TechCrunch. “I have my bot just kind of do all the research and make a document with links to why it’s a choice for whatever type of date it is.”
When I fill him in on Guez’s OpenClaw scheme, he bursts out laughing.
“I guess I’m not leveraging OpenClaw to the fullest,” he said. “But definitely in the realm of using OpenClaw to facilitate a task that I would manually have to do otherwise.”
Like Guez, Weisbein does not hide the fact that he is using AI tools to help plan dates. It backfired, though, when one woman told him, “I hate AI agents”. In a way, asking OpenClaw where to go for happy hour in Fort Lauderdale is not that different from Googling the coolest neighborhood bars. He says he would draw the line at using AI to mediate his actual conversations with women.
“I have seen people create bots and ways to swipe using OpenClaw, and I wouldn’t do that. They say it’s a numbers game, but if that’s what it takes… that seems like a pretty terrible way to do it,” he said. “I feel like you shouldn’t delegate your communication when you’re in a relationship with someone to AI.”
Breaking it off with a bot
People seem hesitant to let AI meddle once there is an actual connection. A tech worker named Cailey said that once she has decided to end a flirtation, she does not mind using Claude to break things off.
“I started using Claude and created an automation that crafts ‘I no longer wish to see you’ messages based on a few key terms I would enter about the date. It’d then automatically send them for me at random times so that I wouldn’t feel the anxiety of when to send,” she told TechCrunch. “It worked really well, until I mentioned it to someone I was on a date with, who I then had to send an automated message to, and he asked if he was talking to Claude or Cailey.”
What is worse: getting ghosted, or getting broken up with by an AI?
Security risks and privacy
OpenClaw rocked the tech world with its potential when it went viral this spring, but security advocates have continuously warned users about the dangers of giving an AI assistant unilateral control over all of your accounts.
For Lazer Cohen, the co-founder of the security-focused OpenClaw alternative NanoClaw, there are steep privacy implications of outsourcing personal relationships to AI. His company advertises date planning as a potential use case on X.
“Whenever you’re giving an agent access to personal information and accounts, you need human-in-the-loop approval,” Cohen told TechCrunch. “We’ve all heard the stories of OpenClaw creating dating profiles for people without their knowledge or consent, or OpenClaw dating coaches spilling to other groups that they’re being used as a dating coach too.”
NanoClaw has found its way into Cohen’s love life, though he uses it in a way that is a bit more wholesome than mass-producing reels that ask heartbroken soccer fans to slide into his DMs.
“My wife and I personally use our NanoClaw assistant, Rosie, to manage the schedules of our five children,” he said. “But ‘claws’ are widely used to help couples get the to child-rearing phase.”
