Why Boyfriend on Demand Didn’t Put a Dystopian Spin on AI Dating

Spoilers ahead for Boyfriend on Demand.

Netflix’s Boyfriend on Demand is a show about AI dating—but it is intentionally not dystopian. The 10-episode series follows Webtoon producer Seo Mi-rae (played by Blackpink’s Jisoo), who becomes a beta tester of Boyfriend on Demand, a virtual reality dating platform where users live out rom-com plots with different AI boyfriends. The monthly subscription service has different tiers at a steep price, but it takes off with South Korean women disillusioned with the current dating scene.

When the series begins, Mi-rae is skeptical of the platform and uninterested in dating, partly due to a painful past breakup and her job, which becomes all-consuming when she is assigned to work with popular—but difficult—Webtoon author Yun Song (Gong Min-jeung).

Mi-rae’s friend Ji-yeon (Ha Young) encourages her to get out more while navigating her own frustrations with non-stop dating. But love finds Mi-rae where she is: literally at work, as she begins developing feelings for her handsome coworker Park Kyeong-nam (Seo In-guk).

First-time screenwriter Namgung Do-young had a lot to work with when building this world—and chose not to make the technology company behind the dating service, DU, the villain the way other projects have, like Black Mirror’s “Hang the DJ” or 2025’s Companion.

She thought about it, Namgung tells ELLE, but there was a greater story she wanted to tell: “I believed that if this story had any villain, it would have to be Mi-rae’s own fear. Of course, advancements in AI and technology in general could jeopardize relationships, but fear is the biggest obstacle we have to overcome in life.”

Mi-rae, Ji-yeon, and Yun Song all end up using Boyfriend on Demand (though they never tell each other). Namgung wrote each of their storylines to represent different categories of singles: those choosing not to date, those actively dating, and those who want to date but can’t. She also penned the show before AI became much more mainstream (and contested) in the last year—making Boyfriend on Demand prescient with its take on a plausible near future. Having premiered last week, the series arrives as AI partners become more popular (Reddit’s r/MyBoyfriendIsAI has over 115,000 members, for example), dating burnout in young people increases, and concern grows about the impact AI companions pose to mental health. (One 2025 study showed that people who use chatbots heavily were more likely to report that they were dependenton them.)

Below, Namgung discusses the choices she made through the writing process, the one scene she scrapped, and what a second season of the limited series could look like, given Mi-rae’s own happy ending.

The idea of virtual reality AI boyfriends doesn’t seem so far off from our world today, and Boyfriend on Demand is one of the few series to have a more nuanced—and less apocalyptic—take on it. What message do you want viewers to take away about AI dating?

“Boyfriend on Demand,” the service Mi-rae subscribes to, may seem like a controversial concept in the sense that it turns romantic feelings into a commercial service. Mi-rae sometimes finds herself so deeply immersed in her relationships with virtual boyfriends on the service that she briefly forgets her reality, but she never loses sight of who she is. I think many stories that explore the relationship between AI and humans feel dystopian because humans in these stories become too dependent on AI or lose their grip on reality, losing sight of who they are. That, in fact, is part of the fear that we feel towards AI.

Mi-rae is an ordinary office worker, but she is particularly protective of her personal time. I think this tendency enables her to balance her daily life with her experiences on the Boyfriend on Demand service, which ultimately helped make this series a bit more lighthearted.

We don’t even have to go as far as dating AI partners to say that people attach their own special meaning to romantic relationships. It is difficult to define what makes a romantic relationship good or bad, but what matters most is that you cannot lose yourself in any relationship. Only when you can find yourself in a relationship and know what you want will you be able to have a better, more sustainable relationship.

Jisoo as Seo Mi-rae in Boyfriend on Demand.

The three main female characters in the series who use the platform, Mi-rae, Ji-yeon, and Yun Song, all have different approaches and outcomes with it. How did you decide on the journeys for each character while writing the series?

I think Mi-rae, Ji-yeon, and Yun Song each represent three different categories of contemporary women when it comes to romantic relationships: those who choose not to date, those who actively date, and those who want to date but can’t.

Mi-rae realizes that she is afraid of change by using the Boyfriend on Demand service, while learning to embrace the fact that changing for someone is brave and valuable through her offline interactions with Kyeong-nam. To me, that was Mi-rae’s growth journey.

Unlike Mi-rae, Ji-yeon has actively pursued dating in real life. While she fully embraces her desires, she is somewhat sensitive about how she is perceived by others. But then, when she steps into virtual reality, she feels liberated from worrying about how other people will judge her for being “too obsessed with men.” I wanted Ji-yeon’s journey to showcase how young women can become free from the norms and rules that others have set for them.

As for Yun Song, she is a web cartoon artist who grinds away at work, even at the expense of her own health, to satisfy other people’s fantasies. But she herself is lonely, without anyone to show her the affection that she needs. I thought, for someone like Song, Boyfriend on Demand might just be a lifeline. I think Boyfriend on Demand can be described as a self-reflective mirror for Mi-rae, freedom for Ji-yeon, and a lifeline for Yun Song.

All three characters hide the fact that they use the platform, even from each other, and when the series ends, it still seems a little bit taboo (even if the technology is popular). The male characters particularly look down on it, though Park Kyeong-nam shows some empathy in the final episode. How did you choose the ending point for each character’s attitude toward AI dating?

In fact, right up until the final draft, I still considered having Mi-rae, Ji-yeon, and Yun Song reveal to each other about their use of Boyfriend on Demand and even connect with one another in virtual reality. I even wrote a scene for that idea. But as we focused more on Mi-rae and Kyeong-nam’s story arc later in the story, the scene was discarded.

That being said, the three women not discussing their use of Boyfriend on Demand reflects a cultural tendency in Korea. Although Korea has become a much more open society over the years, many people still feel uncomfortable about sharing their preferences or opening up about their personal life unless they feel perfectly safe, so that we have a word listed in the dictionary, “il-co,” short for a word that translates to “passing as a regular person.” Many people keep it to themselves that they are hardcore K-pop idol fans, that they meet their dates through dating apps, or that they use matchmaking services for marriage. The reserved attitude of the characters in this series is not a reflection of any ill will, but the social atmosphere.

Seo Mi-rae using Boyfriend on Demand.

The issues with modern dating, along with what AI dating means for that world—and those frustrated with it—is a complicated, vast topic. How do you choose which elements Boyfriend on Demand would address and which it wouldn’t?

As you rightly pointed out, the issues that could be addressed in the series were complicated and broad, which made it incredibly difficult to choose which ones to focus on. But then, as I was reading The Cost of Living, a nonfiction book by Deborah Levy, I stumbled upon this sentence: “To separate from love is to live a risk-free life. What’s the point of that sort of life?”

The passage from this book reassured me that Boyfriend on Demand had to be a story about a woman who is afraid of the risks involved in dating people. Dating with virtual partners would then serve as the supportive device she needs in the process of learning her lessons. Based on this logic, one of the virtual boyfriends Mi-rae feels most attracted to had to remind her of the beginning of her past relationship in the real world, and another reminded her of its end. This was the thought process behind creating the virtual boyfriends in the series—I created them according to Mi-rae’s feelings. All of Mi-rae’s experiences in the world of Boyfriend on Demand were tailored to her. Given how algorithms pervade our daily lives in reality, I wanted to highlight the premise that the AI dating universes were designed and shaped by the needs users themselves didn’t even realize they had.

On the other hand, despite Boyfriend on Demand being a monthly subscription-based service, I deprioritized exploring the dark side of the subscription economy. One example of that would be Mi-rae and Ji-yeon’s financial struggles due to high subscription fees. Also, all the boyfriends Mi-rae meets in the beta test environment are faithful and sweet to her, but in reality, we have subscription tiers that give us different levels of access to services, no matter what the service might be. To reflect that reality, I debated whether the Boyfriend on Demand service should offer better dates at higher subscription fees. But having boyfriends in virtual reality behave differently depending on the subscription fee would risk making the story too dystopian, and introducing that element would also shift the themes to something beyond what I initially had in mind, so I ultimately decided not to explore this.

Mi-rae with AI boyfriend Seo Eunho, living out a college romance.

The tech company behind the AI dating world wasn’t presented as a complete villain in the end, just a company trying to make money. (Though arguably, Mi-rae’s final AI boyfriend, Gu Yeong-il, using her breakup fears to try to manipulate her into staying on the platform was a bit dark.) What inspired you to portray DU the way you did throughout the series?

I believed that if this story had any villain, it would have to be Mi-rae’s own fear. Of course, advancements in AI and technology in general could jeopardize relationships, but fear is the biggest obstacle we have to overcome in life. Thanks to the series’ unique premise around Boyfriend on Demand, Mi-rae faces physical manifestations of her own fears. Since what people desire most often mirrors what they fear most, Gu Yeong-il represents what Mi-rae fears most. In that sense, the conversations between Mi-rae and Young-il later in the series can be seen as Mi-rae’s conversations with herself.

If DU had been portrayed as a villain, it would have added another genre dimension to the story on top of Mi-rae’s feelings, which are explored in the scenes with Young-il, and her personal growth. I wanted to direct viewers’ attention to the theme I believed was most important, so I chose to keep the presence of DU low-key throughout the story.

Jisoo living out a chaebol romance with AI boyfriend Choi Siwoo.

Seo Mi-rae and Park Kyeong-nam accept that change is part of love as the show ends very neatly. If the show was given a second season, what kind of stories would you want to explore?

There were dozens of versions I thought of while working on the script. But as I continued to write the script, I realized that the story’s key premise constantly taps into many of our struggles and dilemmas surrounding love and relationships. And during the production of this series, AI technology made incredible strides, and I think people’s attitude toward the technology changed as well; in contrast to the nebulous fear we initially had about AI’s development, people now seem more determined about leveraging the technology. If the series were given a second season, I think the Boyfriend on Demand service would have to be much more advanced. Then, as a writer, I would have to think about how people would form, maintain, and break a relationship amid such massive change.

Is there anything I didn’t ask that you want to touch on?

I had a lot of discussions with the production team while writing the script for the series. In the process of building its universe and developing the story arcs and its characters, we considered countless options. Ultimately, we all agreed to focus on what would bring joy to as many viewers as possible. I would like to thank everyone who shared their wisdom with me to reach that decision. And above all, I hope that viewers have a great time watching the series.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Watch Boyfriend on Demand on Netflix