After swiping aimlessly for years on dating apps like Hinge and Tinder, Emma Inge … decided to try something different.
… Ms. Inge spent 20 minutes confiding in an artificial intelligence matchmaker. The matchmaker — essentially an A.I. chatbot — asked her over a phone call what she was looking for in a partner, and she relayed her preferences (athletic) and red flags (codependent).
A week later, a notification popped up on her phone. She had a match, and for a one-time fee of $25, she could meet him at a bar.
Her experience is an example of how A.I. is transforming the dating app industry. As start-ups with A.I. matchmakers pop up, the biggest dating apps — Hinge, Tinder, Bumble and Grindr — are trying to harness the technology to reinvent themselves. They are ushering in a new era of online dating where people pay for a few premium A.I. matches a week, instead of subscribing to an endless stream of profiles.
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“This is not a fad,” [Bumble founder] Ms. Wolfe Herd said of A.I. dating at a tech conference last year. “We’re going to lean in fast and furiously.”
