In time for National Coming Out Day on October 11th and Spirit Day on October 17, a new report was released by GLAAD in partnership with eHarmony that explores the way dating apps intersect with how the LGBTQ+ community shares their identities and sexual preferences.

The report details how non-binary, trans and LGB+ daters express (or don’t express) themselves and their preferences over dating apps, and their differences in experiences on these platforms.

Overall, Gen Z daters have been much more likely than previous generations to come out on a dating app. Sixty-six percent of Gen Z daters came out before they were 18 years old, and 93 percent came out by age 22, compared to only 40 percent and 76 percent of Millennials, respectively.

Gay dating app Grindr has been hinting at its development of an AI wingman, but now the company is officially testing an initial model, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ interview with CEO George Arison included more details on the AI wingman, which will keep track of a user’s matches and make conversational suggestions based on messages they have had with other users. The AI bot will even recommend matches with long-term relationship potential and suggest places where they could meet.

According to Arison, down the line, the AI wingmen of Grindr users will be able to chat with each other so they can offer a “robust view” of a match before the user decides to meet in person. “Bot-to-bot conversation not only saves the humans time, it might also spot dating deal-breakers early on,” he told WSJ.

Match Group CFO Steven Bailey

Image: Match Group

Match Group has promoted Steven Bailey to the position of CFO, taking over for Gary Swidler as he continues in his role as president of the company.

Bailey is currently senior vice president of financial planning and business operations at Match Group, according to Reuters, and will assume his new position on March 31st. According to Reuters, his appointment signals the company’s commitment to “long-term strategic growth” and “strong cost discipline.”

Match Group’s most popular app Tinder has seen paying users and revenue fall in recent quarters, though Hinge continues to grow. The company has allocated a lot of resources to AI-driven features like photo selection and prompts that provide users help with crafting messages and bios, which seem to be the direction many dating apps are going. In fact, Grindr is testing out a new virtual wingman using generative AI.

Chispa, a dating app for Latino singles, has partnered with non-partisan organization Voto Latino to encourage more Latinos to go to the polls.

The dating app launched a co-branded election hub on its platform, offering users information on how to register to vote as well as early voting, mail-in voting, and candidate details according to the press release. Chispa said it created the hub to boost voter registration and participation in the Latino community and will in turn support Voto Latino with a contribution toward their voter drive efforts.

Eighty percent of Chispa users are between 18 and 34 years old, a prime demographic as both political parties target younger voters. Voto Latino provides information on registering to vote (which varies from state to state), as well as polling location information and early voting options.

Image: OkCupid

OkCupid has added a range of new politically-focused questions to its platform along with politically-themed badges ahead of the 2024 US election.

According to CNN, the new questions focus on voter behavior and help users choose more compatible profiles. Some questions include: “Are you voting in the 2024 presidential election?” and “What’s the most important issue to you in the 2024 presidential election?”

Other questions refer to whether singles are willing to bridge the political divide, such as: “Is it a dealbreaker if your date is voting for a different candidate than you in the 2024 presidential election?”

Dating apps may be inadvertently helping contribute to greater income inequality, according to a new economic study.

According to The Independent, researchers at the Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis and Dallas and Haverford College found that at least half of the rise in income inequality between 1980 and 2020 can be attributed to changing preferences and the rise of online dating. Because of how easy it is to filter based on preferences, people are more likely now to marry someone in the same socioeconomic bracket than they were before.

According to The Independent, researchers specifically tracked education, race, income, skill level and age of recently married people between 2008 and 2021, as dating apps became more popular. The findings suggest that people are marrying someone more like themselves than they were likely to in earlier years, which the researchers have tied to half of the increase in household income inequality during the same period. When higher-earning people couple up and lower earners do as well, it grows the disparity.