Dating app giant Match Group, which oversees popular platforms like Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, recently conducted a comprehensive study to understand how U.S. singles truly perceive the intersection of artificial intelligence and dating. The findings indicate a clear preference among individuals to limit AI's intrusion into deeply human aspects of life.
This investigation comes amidst a broader industry trend where dating applications are increasingly experimenting with AI. Bumble, for example, has introduced an AI dating assistant named Bee, while Tinder's substantial investment in AI tools has reportedly influenced its hiring processes. Concurrently, Hinge's former CEO stepped down last year to launch an entirely new dating app with a dedicated AI focus.
However, Match's survey, which polled 1,000 individuals aged 18 to 39, revealed that 47% of singles hold a negative view regarding AI's application within romantic contexts.
This perception is nuanced and varies significantly depending on the specific use case for AI. Approximately 40% of singles expressed an unwillingness to date someone who utilizes an AI companion app, a sentiment that escalates to 51% among women aged 18 to 24. Despite this, only 12% of 18- to 24-year-olds reported using a companion app in the past three months, and merely a third of those users indicated they were seeking genuine connections with the chatbots.
While Match noted a "near-universal" disapproval of actually dating an AI, akin to the scenario depicted in the movie "Her," this does not imply a complete rejection of AI-powered features within apps. A significant 64% of respondents acknowledged the potential for AI to assist them throughout their dating journey.
It's important to clarify that, technically, every major dating app has employed some form of matching algorithm long before the advent of generative AI like GPT. This survey specifically addresses the new generation of AI features being rolled out across platforms, designed to help users enhance their profiles, select optimal photos, and maintain engaging conversations.
The crucial takeaway for dating app developers from this survey is that users are not entirely closed off to AI. Rather, they primarily do not wish to be in a relationship with a robot, nor do they want their dating experiences to feel overly saturated with technology that diminishes authenticity.
As Match articulated in a blog post, "Ask singles what they want from AI in dating, and the answer is pretty consistent: help with the hard parts, but hands off for the human parts." The company further explained, "Yes, they’ll use it to help them punch up a profile or for help figuring out what to say when a conversation goes quiet, but the actual connection is still theirs to create."
Hopefully, this message resonates with dating entrepreneurs, including Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, who once suggested a concept where dating app users could have personal bots that interact and date other users’ bots. While meeting a partner online is now a widely accepted social norm, the idea of "his bot asked my bot out, and our bots hit it off" is unlikely to ever achieve similar social acceptance as a romantic origin story.
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