AI and dating apps: a match made in heaven or hell?

Nothing says romance quite like outsourcing your chat-up lines to AI. 

Ask a chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini for some inspiration and you receive results like: 

“Do you have a map? Because I keep getting lost in your eyes,” or, “Are you a magician? Because whenever I look at you, everyone else disappears.”

Given its wit and charm, it’s a surprise really that dating apps haven’t unleashed AI to take over our hopeless romantic pursuits yet. But don’t worry, they’re fixing this.

Grindr, for example, is developing a virtual “wingman” to assist users with icebreakers and offer feedback on their interactions. As Grindr’s chief product officer, AJ Balance, puts it, this tool will be “that friend in the bar who’s helping you ask someone out — but in a virtual context.”

It’s currently unclear who and what exactly is going to train this model, but hopefully Grindr’s AI wingman sources its rizz from somewhere more suave than OpenAI has. 

Meanwhile, Hinge is working on an AI tool to provide feedback on users’ responses to its prompts, with Bumble planning a similar feature.

Earlier this year, the female-focused app’s founder and former chief, Whitney Wolfe Herd, told Bloomberg’s Tech Summit about “a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with another dating concierge.” 

These concierges would make use of artificial intelligence software, which users could train by “shar[ing] your insecurities,” she said to a surely delighted audience. Who doesn’t want AI knowing their darkest secrets?

Thankfully, in a podcast released earlier this summer, Hinge founder and boss Justin McLeod gave a less dystopian view, saying that AI should not be used to replace people in the dating process. “This world of having AI bots as emotional companions,” he said, “I think is territory we really don’t want to go down.”

Most people, one hopes, would agree with him, but the appeal of AI is there. More than three-quarters of Gen Z dating app users report feeling emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted by dating apps, according to a Forbes survey in July. 

AI tools could help ease the burden of ‘datemin’ (dating admin), such as creating a profile and organising a mutually convenient time and location. 

But there might also be problems.

While AI could make it easier for users to message people, it could also send others fleeing if they receive an influx of AI-generated spam-like messages. According to Pew research, around four-in-ten female online daters have had someone continue to contact them after they said they weren’t interested.

And there are other concerns. Could AI introduce bias into how it communicates with potential matches or how it selects your best photos? These tools might also exacerbate issues like catfishing, where users misrepresent themselves online. 

And then there’s the question of data privacy. Will these new AI features simply become another way for apps to harvest more data from users?

Grindr is currently facing a lawsuit in the English High Court lodged in April over its alleged misuse of private information of thousands of its UK users, including highly sensitive details about their HIV status.

The company, which was hit by a 100m krona (£8.5m) fine over a data breach by the Norwegian authority in 2021, said it intends to “respond vigorously to this claim, which appears to be based on a mischaracterisation of practices from more than four years ago”.

Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, Hinge and OKCupid, states that data it collects, including from AI technologies, is “only used to provide the best services possible for our users” and says it does not sell user data to third parties.

When asked if it has concerns over how AI may affect user privacy on dating apps, a spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said: “We recommend that users of these products take the time to understand how their data is being used by the AI models, reviewing the app privacy information and checking their privacy settings.”

Ultimately, this push towards AI feels like a bid to save the struggling business models of dating apps, with many fighting to attract new users. 

Tinder has seen a decline in paying subscribers for seven consecutive quarters, leading Match Group to announce plans to slash six per cent of its global workforce in July. 

As of its second quarter of 2024, Bumble had around 4.1m paying users worldwide. While this was an increase from 3.6m in the same quarter of 2023, the rate of growth has slowed since 2021. Bumble’s shares crashed 30 per cent in August after it slashed its revenue outlook and the stock has fallen nearly 54 per cent in the year to date.

Dating app critics point out the inherent conflict of interest that these companies have; as businesses that make money from paying customers, they cannot have a genuine goal of helping people find lasting connections, and instead want to keep them on the app.

AI may have the desired effect and win users over initially, but in the long run it remains to be seen whether it will turn users away or keep them swiping.