Features

AI and chatbots are changing how we date, as well as how we use dating apps.

According to a new report in Times of India, as well as a report from Business Insider, singles are gravitating more to AI features, including using them to craft messages and profiles, analyze relationships, and even finding virtual girlfriends and boyfriends via realistic chatbots. (In some cases, dating apps that are AI-based can send chatbots in the likeness of the user out on dates with chatbots of other users and report back how the date went – in other words, the chatbots do the heavy lifting.)

The Business Insider report conducted an experiment where its reporter set up her chatbot and it went on a date. The conversation with her date’s chatbot was sent to her via the app so she could read the exchange. She noted that her chatbot got some of the answers she would have said right, and others wrong. (For example, the chatbot said she loved pineapple on pizza. In fact, she’d never tried it).

Dating apps are adding geolocation sharing features to their platforms, but a new investigation found that it’s possible to identify the exact location of a user with stunning accuracy.

According to a new report from Mashable, a study by Checkpoint Research’s Alexey Bukhteyev found that trilateration can be used to find the precise location of a dating app user. Most dating apps use location filters to match people who are relatively close to each other, but trilateration can find the exact position of a user by measuring distances from multiple points, accurate to within a few meters. This technique can also circumvent privacy protections built into these apps.

Bukhteyev found this particularly worrying on LGBTQ+ dating apps, two of which were used in his investigation, according to Mashable. One of the issues is that in countries that don’t recognize the rights of LGBTQ+ people, local and government officials can locate and target dating app users with trilateration. Recently, officials in the Middle East were targeting people on gay dating apps, asking them to meet for a date, and arresting them when they arrived.

A new study has found that when dating app users can share disappearing photos with other users, it can increase matches and user engagement.

According to Phys.org, researchers found that enabling people to share photos that would disappear within a certain timeframe helped them overcome fears related to privacy and helped with conversation starters. Many dating app users are not willing to share personal details about themselves when they meet new people on dating apps, making it more difficult to connect and have deeper conversations, according to the study.

The large-scale randomized field experiment was conducted with more than 70,000 users of a China-based dating app. The experiment featured both a control group where subjects uploaded a photo that would stay posted, like in traditional dating app profiles, and a treatment group where users could upload ephemeral photos. They found that users in the treatment group sent more personal photos compared with the control group.

YouApp Homepage Snapshot

Two dating apps based in Asia have changed their platforms to entice women - and intend to take market share away from popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.

According to South China Morning Post, dating platform YouApp recently underwent a major revamp. The app now uses AI to create personality tests targeting specific demographics and cultures within its userbase, to correct a longstanding problem: men outnumber women on these platforms.

In fact, Pew Research found based on a survey conducted in 2022, 54 percent of women in the U.S. felt overwhelmed by messages on dating apps compared to 64 percent of men who said they felt the opposite.

Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones sat down with Tech Crunch to discuss women on the platform no longer making the first move, potential new safety features, AI, and other plans to enhance the app.

In a recent interview Jones shared that she is reconsidering the basic premise of Bumble: that women make the first move. Instead, she said that women should be given the choice of whether they want to make the first move or not, giving them more control in their dating experience.

Jones assured Tech Crunch that her goal of empowering women on the platform remains steadfast: “Our brand awareness is so high, it’s amazing. And if you ask anybody about Bumble, they’ll say it’s about women, and the core of that is not changing. We are a company that really cares about women’s empowerment.”

Grindr’s CEO George Arrison is planning to monetize the app more aggressively, including launching an AI chatbot and putting previously free features behind a paywall.

News website Platformer broke the news about Grindr’s plans to launch an AI-based “boyfriend” chatbot feature that can engage in sexually explicit conversations with users, for a price. Some employees have expressed weariness, as the AI-generated conversations could be based in part on private chats between other human users, pending their consent.

Platformer also learned that Grindr is revising its terms of service to ask people signing up if the company can train their AI models on their personal data, which can include direct messages. This is likely to be a privacy issue going forward for other dating apps who could pursue employing user data to train AI.