Tinder

This summer, young daters have been more interested in tossing aside geographical boundaries and looking for love in faraway places. They are also looking for short-term romance that comes to an end after the vacation is over.

According to Mashable, 33 percent of Bumble users are embracing “wanderlove” - the prospect of pursuing love interests outside of where they live. And young singles want to experience adventure and romance in a new place. Travel is the top priority for these daters, and if they can have an “expirationship” - a little bit of romance along with it that can end when they finish their travels, even better.

Part of this growing trend is due to post-pandemic work models, where many people were able to move to where they wanted to live, rather than stay where their workplace is located. Young people with no kids are especially interested in traveling, rather than putting down roots in a specific place.

Dating app Hinge is looking for a new head of AI, and is willing to pay almost $400K to the right person who will lead the team.

AI has become increasingly important to dating apps, and Match Group CEO Bernard Kim is capitalizing on the versatile technology to expand product offerings, especially for star app Tinder. Now, he’s focusing efforts on AI for its fastest-growing dating app, Hinge.

According to Business Insider, the new position was created to confirm Hinge as an “AI-first company.” The VP of Artificial Intelligence will lead a team of data scientists and machine learning engineers “to create and deploy AI features across the app,” as reported by Business Insider. The new hire will be based in New York, and report to Ben Celebicic, Hinge’s Chief Technology Officer.

Shares of Bumble fell 4 percent in early August after the company shared its relatively “lackluster” third-quarter revenue forecast, coupled with a sharper rise in its operating expenses, according to Reuters.

This rise in spending concerned investors, especially after Tinder’s parent company Match Group recently predicted that its third quarter revenue would be higher than analyst expectations, despite its own spend on development and marketing. The company has struggled lately with Tinder, and has been implementing new features to increase in-app revenue and expand its userbase. The company also recently announced it will be launching a high-end service for users who are willing to pay as much as $500 per month.

Bumble meanwhile shared that its operating expenses had jumped 7 percent in the second quarter with additional spend on product development and marketing.

Match Group announced in its quarterly earnings call that its star app Tinder will be launching a “high-end” subscription tier this fall. In addition, Tinder will debut a product refresh to cater to the Gen Z dating market.

The company has been testing price points in different markets, including a $500 subscription that was called Tinder Vault, according to CPO Mark Van Ryswyk. In an interview with Fast Company earlier this year, he noted that there’s a market for daters who are willing to pay for good matches, as evidenced by the success of its exclusive dating app The League.

However, the price point was arguably high for an app that will not include human matchmakers, but instead will continue to rely on technology to serve up better matches.

Dating app Tinder is testing an AI feature that will select the best profile photos for users, according to reports from parent company Match Group’s latest earnings call.

Tech Crunch noted that the AI feature will examine a Tinder member’s photo album and select five that “best represents them for their dating profile.” According to Match Group CEO Bernard Kim, choosing pictures is a stressful process for daters, and typically they have doubts about which ones they pick, what he labeled as a “pain point” on the earnings call.

“Sometimes, people are really excited to jump into the Tinder experience,” Kim said. He continued: “then in that exact moment where you upload five pictures, people get generally nervous or uncomfortable, like, ‘What is the right picture that I’ve taken over the last year to make my dating profile more me?’”

Tinder is heading in a bold new direction that includes regenerative AI and a “fresh and new feel” according to its chief product officer Mark van Ryswyk.

At the Reuters Momentum Festival, the CPO shared that he and his team have been studying common user problems and have identified three key elements to focus on: realness, respect and relevancy. Van Ryswyk said on stage: “There’s an opportunity for us to deliver something by end of year that’s going to start to tackle these things,” he added.

According to Fast Company, Match Group refused to expand on these comments, but the company has been focused on rolling out premium features and appealing to its fastest-growing market Gen Z.