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4 days ago
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Fed up with writing dating profiles? Or sick and tired of swiping? Dating apps not really doing it for you? Let a digital sidekick take the strain.
While user fatigue might be setting in – reports suggest a notable decline in usage – the world’s biggest online dating company is launching an AI assistant that it claims will “transform” online dating.
Match Group, the technology company with the world’s largest portfolio of dating platforms, has announced it is increasing investment in artificial intelligence with new products coming in March 2025.
An as yet unnamed AI assistant will act like a digital wingman, performing core dating tasks such as selecting the photos it calculates will garner you the most responses while recommending what prompts and information to put in your bio. It will also help you choose the perfect partner.
The AI will conduct a spoken interview with you to establish what you want to get out of your dating experience, and will suggest what messages to send to people it matches you with based on their interests.
The company has also said that AI will provide “effective coaching for struggling users”, which will include tips for users who are failing to get matches about how to attract more attention to their profile.
Bernard Kim, the CEO of Match Group, told investors this month that the focus on AI will be the beginning of a new phase in the company labelled “AI transformation”.
“This technology is revolutionary for dating, and we’re bringing it to life across our entire portfolio. I envision AI to be felt through the entire experience, influencing everything from profile creation to matching and connecting for dates, literally everything.”
The announcement comes after an Ofcom report showed that dating app usage was down from last year, with the two main apps owned by Match Group – Tinder and Hinge – losing nearly 750,000 subscribers between them in the UK.
Gary Swidler, president and CFO of Match Group, said AI would streamline the dating experience and that the company was investing in the technology now so that its benefits would “manifest themselves over time” for investors and users.
“There’s lots of information that AI can pull out of somebody else’s profile and offer help to make the matching process and the post-match process a lot better – you get better efficiency because you put in less effort and you’ve got better outcomes.”
The technology is not without its critics, however. Anastasiia Babash, a PhD candidate and junior research fellow at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and a member of the international Ethical Dating Online project, has said that the increased reliance on AI in dating could be detrimental to people’s ability to interact without it.
“There is a risk that users who rely on AI in their dating life may potentially experience more dependency on technology and a diminishing of their personal agency. If people start to rely on AI to handle their conversations with potential dates, there’s a risk that it could result in losing the ability to engage in real, spontaneous conversations, and ultimately make it harder for people to build genuine connections.”
Babash also questions whether companies, including large multinationals such as Match Group, can be trusted to safeguard the immense amount of data they are collecting and using to train their algorithms, or to remove data bias problems that have been prevalent in AI projects in the past.
“Dating apps are constantly collecting more personal data to improve their matchmaking and interactions. This constant data collection raises significant concerns about data privacy and security. Many users may not fully understand the extent of the data being collected or how it is being used, which puts them at risk of data misuse or hacking.
Additionally, the AI systems used in dating apps are often trained on data that reflect existing biases. If these biases aren’t addressed, AI could reinforce stereotypes or even discriminate against certain groups based on factors like race, gender, or socioeconomic status.”
Faye Iosotaluno, the CEO of Tinder, said the company had been taking a careful approach to AI in relation to how it handles data, but that they were committed to bringing it into the mainstream.
“I think it does have a chance to really revolutionise how users are engaging. We want to be super thoughtful about that.”
