The stars have acquired a user interface: When AI meets astrology

As AI enters astrology apps and predictions, technology is becoming a new interface for humanity's oldest questions about uncertainty and the future

Before I could ask an astrologer about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), I had to explain the technology itself. For a moment, the conversation seemed to be moving in reverse. 

The first one listened patiently as I tried to explain AI. He nodded occasionally, thought about it for a minute and arrived at a 

conclusion: “The internet.” 

The second reached for a notebook before I had finished my first question. Date. Time. Place. The future, in his world, began there. By the time I got to AI, he seemed genuinely puzzled. Why, he asked, would an astrologer have anything to say about AI? 

In his defence, it was a strange question. I wasn’t sitting across from a technology analyst or a startup founder. I was sitting across from someone whose tools were charts, houses, and planetary positions. Looking back, I realised I had walked up carrying an assumption that made perfect sense to me and almost none to him. 

Later, I put the same question to AI: What did it think about the future of astrology? The answer was surprisingly calm. Astrology would adapt, it said. Technology would change how it was delivered, not why people sought it. An astrology AI was even more certain. The stars, apparently, had little to fear from algorithms. 

Somewhere between the astrologers, the chatbots and my birth chart, I found myself asking: Why did any of this feel so reasonable? 

A few years ago, asking an astrologer about AI and AI about astrology would have sounded like the setup to a joke. Today, both fit comfortably inside the same app. 

When I asked the astrologers about my future, the conversation settled quickly into familiar territory. Career prospects. Timing. Whether journalism had a future. Whether I was making the right choices. 

The AI conversations were not very different. What should I do next? Am I making the right decision? What happens from here?

Nobody, interestingly, seemed particularly interested in discussing astrology or AI. The conversation kept drifting back to the same things: Work, relationships, uncertainty, and the future. 

The systems are different. The questions travel surprisingly well between them. 

For centuries, astrology has offered a way of organising uncertainty. A difficult year could be explained through a planetary transit. A delayed opportunity could be understood as a matter of timing. 

AI is built on entirely different foundations, yet people increasingly use it in the same territory: To interpret possibilities. 

Perhaps, that helps explain why the overlap no longer feels strange. 

The astrologers I spoke to seemed unsure why the two belonged in the same conversation. The internet, meanwhile, had already made up its mind. 

Open an app store today and the combinations arrive quickly. AI astrologers. AI-generated kundlis. AI-powered compatibility reports. Somewhere along the way, the stars have acquired a user interface. 

The scale is difficult to ignore. India’s astrology app market, estimated at around $163 million in 2024, is projected to grow to nearly $1.8 billion by 2030. Astrotalk, one of India’s largest astrology platforms, reported revenue of more than ₹1,200 crore in FY25 and says it has served over 120 million users, largely by connecting them with human astrologers online. 

But the category is evolving quickly. Melooha, which appeared on Shark Tank India in 2024 as an AI-powered astrology platform, raised more than $635,000 in angel funding the same year. Within months of rolling out newer AI-led features, the company said it had answered more than 300,000 user questions, crossed 70,000 downloads, and expanded its reach to over 100 countries. 

Across app stores, the language is remarkably consistent: AI-generated kundlis, machine-assisted predictions, personalised guidance and compatibility reports. 

What struck me was not that astrology had moved online.  Most things eventually do. It was the language. 

For decades, astrology and technology occupied opposite ends of the modern imagination. One belonged to planetary positions and ancient systems of interpretation. The other to innovation, computation and the promise that data and logic could help people make sense of an uncertain world. 

Today, the boundaries seem less rigid. Across apps and platforms, astrology increasingly arrives wrapped in the vocabulary of technology itself. The reading is personalised. The recommendation is tailored. The prediction is AI-powered. 

The stars have not changed. The pitch has. 

I keep coming back to the astrologer’s question. Why, he had asked, would an astrologer have anything to say about AI?

Perhaps because neither is really being asked about itself. 

People rarely turn to astrologers to discuss planets. They rarely open ChatGPT to marvel at large language models. More often, they arrive carrying the same questions they always have: What should I do next? Am I making the right decision? What does the future look like from here? 

The technologies change. The interfaces change. The questions endure.  

Maybe that is why the conversation felt as though it was moving in reverse.  Technology was supposed to replace astrology. Instead, it appears to have become its newest interface.

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