Kian84 Goes on Dates With AI in SBS's New Romance Survival Show

SBS announced on July 20 that it will launch My AI Partner: Kian84's Love, Korea's first AI-powered romance survival show, next month. For Kian84, the webtoon artist and longtime variety fixture, it marks his first time appearing in any romance-themed program.

The format drops participants into a dating world built and managed by AI, where the encounters, relationship shifts, and emotional stakes are all shaped by the system rather than by producers handing out roses. Kian84 and comedian Jang Do-yeon are the two cast members who step directly into that world as participants, navigating dates no one can predict in advance and reacting to a romantic dynamic that can pivot without warning.

The production team describes it as a "love experiment observation program" designed around feelings that would be difficult to access in ordinary life: giddiness alongside wariness, anticipation followed by disappointment. For Kian84 specifically, the show promises a side of him distinct from the deadpan, self-deprecating persona he has built across years of observational variety. His unfiltered reactions and choices inside the AI-designed scenarios will be captured without editing for comfort.

Jang Do-yeon pulls double duty on the show: she is both a participant inside the AI dating world and a studio MC, giving her an unusual vantage point on the whole experiment. She hosts alongside singer Kang Nam and actor Lee Joon, the three of them watching and commenting from the studio as the dates unfold.

The production team put the central question plainly in their statement: "As AI develops at rapid speed, we want viewers to watch and judge for themselves how deep an emotional connection between humans and AI is actually possible." That framing positions the show less as escapist romance content and more as a live-audience test of a cultural anxiety that has grown alongside every new AI release cycle.

With AI-themed entertainment formats still rare on Korean broadcast television, the early returns on audience curiosity will be worth watching when the show premieres next month. A romance survival show built around an AI partner is either the beginning of a new subgenre or an interesting experiment that stays singular. Given Kian84's track record of turning awkward sincerity into compelling television, the former seems more likely.