I built an AI-assisted I Ching app for Android — here's what I learned about digital divination

A software product manager from China developed a free AI-assisted I Ching app called BU (I Ching & Daily Fortune) for Android. The app is bilingual in English and Chinese. The inspiration for the app came from the author's search for a good I Ching app and finding only two extremes - either highly classical Chinese content that intimidated beginners or horoscope-style apps that merely dressed up Western wisdom in an Eastern wrapper. BU aims to bridge this gap.

The app provides traditional hexagram casting, followed by an AI interpretation of the hexagram and moving lines in plain, easy-to-understand language. It also offers a daily fortune, refreshed every morning, and includes a Tongshu almanac page detailing auspicious dates and daily guidance. Users can save and share their readings.

The author learned that the interpretation layer of the AI is more important than the casting process itself. Users often drop off when faced with cryptic hexagram text, not because they dislike the coin animation. The plain-language AI interpretation appears to be the key feature. The bilingual nature of the app, while doubling the work involved in translating classical Chinese terms and their meanings, turned out to be beneficial.

These classical terms, such as 贞 (zén), 吝 (wǎn), and 元亨 (yuánhéng), do not have a one-to-one correspondence in English, requiring careful philosophical decisions rather than straightforward translations.

Interestingly, the app is used more as a journaling tool than a traditional fortune-telling method. The save and share functionality, coupled with the daily cadence, has turned BU into a reflection habit for its users. The accuracy of the AI interpretation does not matter as much as whether the reading provides a useful frame for the day.

Daily fortunes seem to drive user retention, while deeper readings foster a deeper love for the app. The author welcomes brutal feedback, especially from users who actually read the app's content. BU is available on Google Play for download.