I've spent most of my career in consumer health.
Twenty-four years ago, I co-founded Everyday Health and helped build it from an idea into a public company. Through all of that, there was one part of health I always wanted to work on that we never really touched: relationships.
We measure nearly everything now. We track our sleep, exercise, recovery, nutrition and finances. But most of us have very little help understanding the health of our relationship, or knowing what to do when we keep getting stuck in the same places.
That is why we started Decode Love.
Decode Love begins with an evaluation that gives you a Love Satisfaction Score and a Couple Archetype.
The score is a starting snapshot based only on the answers you provide. It is not a diagnosis, a clinical assessment, an objective judgment about your relationship or a prediction of whether you will stay together.
Your Archetype is designed to help you explore patterns, strengths and possible points of friction in your relationship. It is a tool for reflection, not a definitive description of either person or of your relationship.
Today, we are adding the next and most important piece: the Decode Love Coach.
The Coach uses information you and your partner provide about your relationship to help you explore a pattern, think through a difficult moment, prepare for a conversation or find a small way to reconnect. It is designed to consider information from both people, rather than relying only on one side of one conversation.
But this is the beginning, not the finished product.
The beta is an early version of Decode Love. We are testing what the Coach understands, where it gets things wrong and what kinds of support people find useful.
The Coach may give a thoughtful response. It may also misunderstand you, miss important context, offer advice that does not fit your situation or produce an answer that is simply not good enough. It is an evolving AI system and can make mistakes.
Please use your own judgment. You do not have to follow anything the Coach suggests. If a response feels wrong, unsafe or unhelpful, stop using it and seek help from a qualified professional or another trusted resource.
We do not want to assume that the product is helping. Over time, we want to study which kinds of support may be useful for different couples and whether using Decode Love is associated with changes in relationship satisfaction. This will take time, evidence and the help of people who participate during the beta. We cannot promise that the Coach will improve your relationship or that your satisfaction will change.
Anyone who joins during this beta period will receive access to the beta service at no charge for 12 months, subject to our Beta Terms. In return, we hope you will tell us what works, what does not and where we need to improve.
You can send feedback directly to me at mike@decodelove.com. Please use "Beta feedback" in the subject line. I genuinely want to hear it.
You may share deeply personal information with the Coach. We take that responsibility seriously, but you should understand that the Coach is not a private conversation with a human professional.
During the beta, automated systems will scan conversations for possible safety concerns. A limited number of authorized Decode Love team members may also review selected conversations. This may include conversations flagged by our automated systems. We may review these conversations to investigate safety issues, understand problems, respond to reports and improve the product.
Access is limited to people who need it for these purposes. Where reasonably possible, we remove or obscure direct personal identifiers before or during review. However, no system can guarantee complete anonymity or complete confidentiality.
Please do not enter information that you would not want reviewed for these limited purposes. Do not share passwords, financial account information, government identification numbers or other information that is not necessary to use the service.
For details about what information we collect, how we use it, who may access it, how long we retain it and how we delete it, please read our Privacy Policy. The Privacy Policy and Beta Terms govern your use of Decode Love and provide additional information about these practices.
Decode Love is currently intended only for adults 18 and older. Do not use the service if you are under 18.
The Decode Love Coach is an AI relationship-support tool. It is not a human therapist, counselor, healthcare provider, lawyer or emergency service.
The Coach does not provide medical, mental-health or legal advice. Its responses may be incomplete, inaccurate or inappropriate for your situation. Do not rely on the Coach to diagnose a condition, assess whether someone is dangerous, determine whether a relationship is safe, or decide whether you should stay in or leave a relationship.
The Coach is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you need help with a health, mental-health, legal or relationship concern, contact an appropriately qualified professional.
The Coach is not designed to manage emergencies or situations involving immediate danger, abuse, threats, coercive control, violence, self-harm or serious mental-health concerns. It may not recognize these situations or respond appropriately.
If you or another person may be in immediate danger, call emergency services now. Do not wait for a response from the Coach.
In the United States, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline if you or someone else is experiencing a mental-health or suicide-related crisis.
If you are experiencing relationship abuse or feel unsafe, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE or visit thehotline.org.
If you are outside the United States, contact your local emergency services or a crisis and domestic-violence resource in your country.
Relationships affect nearly every part of our lives: our health, our work, our families and our children. Yet most relationship support begins only after something has gone seriously wrong.
We want to help change that.
Our mission is to make relationship health more understandable, more measurable and eventually more improvable. We want couples to recognize patterns earlier, communicate more thoughtfully and have better tools for caring for the relationship they are building together.
We do not yet know exactly how far Decode Love can go. That is the point of this beta. We will test, listen, measure and improve, and be honest about what we learn.
If you choose to participate, you will be helping us build what we hope becomes an important new category of preventive relationship health.
Thank you for trusting us at the beginning.
