Dating app conglomerate Match Group — owner of platforms like Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid — recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. singles aged 18 to 39 to gauge attitudes toward artificial intelligence in romance. The findings reveal a cautious public: 47% of respondents hold a negative view of AI's involvement in romantic contexts.
Across the dating industry, AI experimentation is accelerating. In 2026, Bumble launched an AI dating assistant named Bee, while Tinder has ramped up AI tool spending so significantly that it slowed hiring. Meanwhile, Hinge's former CEO left in late 2025 to found Overtone, a dating app built around AI-driven interactions.
The survey highlights nuanced opinions depending on AI's role. For instance, 40% of singles said they would refuse to date someone who uses an AI companion app — a figure that jumps to 51% among women aged 18 to 24. Yet only 12% of that age group reported using a companion app in the past three months, and just a third of those users sought genuine emotional connections with chatbots.
While Match describes “near-universal” disapproval of dating an AI entity — akin to the premise of the film Her — respondents are not entirely opposed to AI features within apps. About 64% acknowledged that AI could assist them in their dating journey, particularly with profile enhancement, photo selection, and conversation prompts.
It is worth noting that every major dating app has employed matching algorithms long before the current generative AI wave. This survey refers to the latest suite of AI tools designed to help users refine profiles, choose photos, and keep interactions flowing naturally.
“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,” Match wrote in a blog post. “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.”
The takeaway for dating app developers is clear: users are not completely closed off to AI, but they reject the notion of forming relationships with robots or feeling that their romantic experiences are overwhelmed by inauthentic technology. As Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd once floated the idea of personal bots dating other users' bots, the survey suggests such concepts remain far from socially acceptable — unlike the now commonplace phrase, “we met online.”
via TechCrunch AI