AI reshaping 1st dates
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Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
Like most parts of daily life, AI has entered the dating world, from helping craft an opening line to serving as an online matchmaker.
Why it matters: Relationships should be about authenticity and learning who the other person really is. Some fear leaving those early interactions to AI will further erode human connection.
State of play: The app Bumble released an AI-generated assistant called Bee this year.
- Bee can help refine a user's profile or give feedback on a photo, CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told Axios' Sara Fischer earlier this year.
- "We will not be leaning into AI as a replacement to human connection. Our goal is to leverage AI to make love and connection more human," Wolfe Herd said.
Zoom in: Apps like Amata take it one step further, setting users up with an AI matchmaker.
- One user profiled in the Wall Street Journal spent weeks chatting with her AI bot, which then matched her with a date based on the feedback.
- "It felt like we weren't even strangers," the dater told WSJ about meeting her human match.
Between the lines: AI in dating surfaces issues similar to those the tool does in other parts of life — easy isn't always better.
- "Someone is very articulate and seems to say everything right in a chat function, but then can't string a sentence together in person. … That can be a warning signal at best and a turn-off at worst," Chicago dating coach and researcher Lakshmi Rengarajan tells Axios.
- "The battle is, the industry wants to make things quote unquote easier. Well, easier isn't always necessarily what actually builds the foundation for a relationship," Rengarajan says.
Context: Match Group — the owner of Tinder, Hinge, Match.com, OkCupid and others — surveyed approximately 1,000 U.S. singles ages 18 to 39 about AI, dating and relationships, Axios Megan Morrone reports.
- 74% say they use ChatGPT and roughly 64% say AI helps create a stronger dating profile, make conversation and plan dates.
Yes, but: Nearly half of those surveyed view AI negatively in the context of romantic relationships.
Zoom out: Plus, the role of AI once a relationship is established can further complicate the picture, as noted in a BYU study about AI companions.
- "If my current partner is angry at me or I'm not satisfied in my current relationship, engaging with an AI might feel like I'm not really cheating," Brian Willoughby said in a release about the study.
- "The concern with AI is that, like pornography, it will create very unhealthy, unrealistic expectations about real relationships."
What's next: We haven't all given up on real-life interactions. Rengarajan has spent more than a decade hosting human-centered events.
- Since February, her project How to Date Humans has connected real people to learn how we can build relationships — romantic or otherwise — by actually being, yes, human.