AI / LLMChina
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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Singularity Perturbation & Lu Hongyi with AI Digital Life 'Ray': The Entrepreneurial Journey from Cognitive AI to Emotional Companionship
Founded: Lu Hongyi · Beijing Singularity Perturbation Technology Co., Ltd.
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryAI / LLM
RegionChina
ScaleSME
ChannelOther
Origin
Lu Hongyi was originally a serial entrepreneur with a background in cognitive science who had worked at several AI companies. During his research, he found that existing AI emotional companionship products mostly stayed at a shallow conversational level, lacking a deep understanding of users' emotional needs. He believed that AI should transcend its utility attributes and become a form of 'digital life', establishing a warm, long-term relationship with users. This philosophy gave birth to the launch of Singularity Perturbation and the 'Ray' project.
Milestones
2023
Startup Launch Turning Point
In 2023, Lu Hongyi decided to leave his former company to start an independent business, founding Beijing Singularity Perturbation Technology Co., Ltd. The initial team consisted of only 5 members, all with technical backgrounds. Lu Hongyi admitted in interviews that at the time, the AI emotional companionship market was already dominated in user minds by products like Replika, and the team needed to find a unique entry point. He positioned the company as an 'AI digital life' R&D developer rather than a simple chatbot provider.
2024
Prototype Development Failure
In early 2024, the first-generation prototype of 'Ray' completed development, with the team investing about 2 million yuan of self-funded capital. However, the prototype exposed serious issues in real-user testing: the dialogue logic was overly rational, lacking emotional warmth, and user retention was under 15%. Lu Hongyi admitted during his review that the team focused excessively on technical implementation while ignoring the complexity of emotional interaction design. This failure caused the product launch to be delayed by about 6 months, and team morale was low.
2024
Product Reconstruction Turning Point
In June 2024, Lu Hongyi decided to comprehensively reconstruct the product strategy, introducing psychology and narrative design experts to the team. The team redesigned Ray's personality system and memory architecture, enabling it to gradually form a unique 'personality growth' process based on user interaction history. This reconstruction led to a qualitative leap in product experience, increasing the weekly retention rate of internal test users to over 40%. By the end of 2024, the team expanded to 15 members.
2025
Official Launch PMF
In the first quarter of 2025, 'Ray' was officially launched on major app stores, with first-month downloads exceeding 500,000. The product was positioned as 'AI digital life', emphasizing the long-term emotional bond and shared growth experience formed between users and 'Ray'. Nine months after launch, cumulative registered users exceeded 2 million, the paid conversion rate was about 8%, and monthly active paying users reached 160,000. The team achieved a monthly revenue scale of about 3 million RMB at the end of 2025, preliminarily validating the business model.
2026
Commercial Expansion Growth
In 2026, 'Ray' rolled out more commercial features, including advanced personality customization, voice call companionship, and a virtual gift system. The product's daily active users surpassed 600,000, with paying users spending an average of about 28 RMB per month. Lu Hongyi revealed in public interviews that the company is engaging with multiple investment institutions for a new round of financing, planning to expand the product form into smart hardware and virtual reality scenarios. The team size has expanded to 40 people, all located in Beijing.
Turning Points
- After the prototype test failure in early 2024, Lu Hongyi decided to break away from a purely technical team mindset and introduced psychology and narrative design experts
- A comprehensive product reconstruction in June 2024 made the growth and memory system of 'AI digital life' the core experience rather than an additional feature
- Rapid PMF validation following the 2025 launch, with organic user propagation forming a word-of-mouth effect and breaking 2 million registered users
Failures & Pitfalls
- The first-generation prototype lacked emotional warmth in real-user testing, resulting in a user retention rate of under 15% and a 6-month product delay
- The team placed excessive faith in technical capabilities early on, neglecting emotional interaction design and misjudging the product direction
- In 2024, the team attempted to provide B2B enterprise AI emotional customer service solutions to increase revenue, but later found it inconsistent with the company positioning and abandoned the transformation plan in early 2025
关键成功要素
- Elevating AI emotional companionship products from a 'tool' to a 'digital life', emphasizing long-term relationships and memory formation
- A diversified team composition blending AI technology, psychology, and content narrative design talent
- Focusing on user retention and the cultivation of payment habits rather than short-term user acquisition, achieving an 8% paid conversion rate
- Product iteration rapidly adjusted based on real user feedback, with the courage to tear down and rebuild
Lessons
- The core competitiveness of AI emotional products is not model technology itself, but the design capability of the emotional interaction experience
- Startups must dare to admit product direction errors early on and decisively reconstruct rather than patching a flawed prototype
- Building user trust for emotional companionship products takes time, and retention rate represents health better than short-term download volume
- Team diversification and cross-disciplinary thinking are crucial for AI consumer products
Core Data
- 累计注册用户：Over 2 million (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 月日均活跃用户：Over 600,000 (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 付费转化率：Approximately 8% (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 月度营收：Approximately 3 million RMB (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 平均每付费用户月消费：28 RMB (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 团队规模：40 people (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
- 首月下载量：500,000 downloads (publicly disclosed figures, unverified by independent audit)
Competitors / Peers
In China's AI emotional companionship track, Singularity Perturbation faces fierce competition. In the international market, Replika holds a first-mover advantage with 54 million registered users, while domestic products with tens of millions of users include Xingye (under MiniMax) and Maoxiao (under ByteDance). In addition, Fuzozo has entered the emotional companionship market with a desktop robot form factor and leads in sales, Jiban emphasizes a 'shared experience' social mode, and Mujian targets introverted social scenarios. With its differentiated positioning in 'AI digital life', Singularity Perturbation has established a unique barrier in the niche market, but there is still a significant gap in user scale compared to top competitors.