Hinge

An investigation into Match Group by nonprofit news organization The Markup and Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network found that the company had information about users who were reported for sexual assault, but did not ban them from its apps, publicly identify them, or report them to authorities.

This report follows the company’s ouster of CEO Bernard Kim, who was not able to turn around the company’s revenue decline over the past several quarters. He was replaced by Zillow Group Inc. co-founder Spencer Rascoff.

Now, Match Group is facing the fallout from this investigation.

Hinge just launched Prompt Feedback, a new feature to help users with profile building. The personalized, AI-driven coaching feature “guides daters to create more meaningful first impressions” according to the company’s website.

Prompt Feedback is Hinge’s first AI-powered coaching feature, and offers personalized advice to help daters improve the responses they give for Prompts. Hinge notes that writing Prompts can be difficult for its users. “On Hinge, 27% of all Prompts are just one word, and 60% of daters admit they struggle to know what to write," the company wrote in its release.

With Prompt Feedback, when a user writes a response to a prompt, they are given one of three pieces of feedback: “great answer,” “Try a small change,” or “go a little deeper.”

Match Group said its plans for the future will be centered around AI, according to remarks company executives made at Investor Day. 

Executives from some of its more popular apps like Hinge, Tinder, OkCupid and more, teased how they were planning to implement AI on their platforms with the goal of transforming the way users interact with them, according to CNN. For example, Justin McLeod, the CEO of Hinge, said that they intend to “fully embrace” AI to personalize matching and to create smarter algorithms, as well as implementing AI coaching for struggling singles.

“While AI is not going to be a panacea when it comes to the very deeply and personal problem of love,” McLeod said at Investor Day, “I can tell you that it is going to transform the dating app experience, taking it from a do-it-yourself platform to an expertly guided journey that leads to far better outcomes and much better value to our daters.”

Dating app Hinge posted some advice on its blog to guide users heading into the busiest season for dating apps, from New Year’s Day until Valentine’s Day.

Hinge advises users to embrace a concept called “Dating Forward,” which means to focus on intentional actions to create the love life you want. Hinge’s Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury said in the post to give your profile a refresh, which includes updated photos, trying out a new prompt on its app, and including your dating intentions so there’s clarity about what you want in a relationship.

There are also other tips Ury offers for searching on dating apps, such as looking for potential in matches and agreeing to message and meet for a date to see where it goes before discounting them because they don’t match your ideal.

Match Group is refocusing the strategy for its most popular dating app Tinder, the company announced this week. It faces increasing pressure from activist investors to improve its financial forecast.

Match Group said in its recent investor day meeting that it plans to “prioritize improving user experience over monetization,” According to Bloomberg. The idea is if Tinder moves away from its reputation as a hookup app it can reverse the continued decline in paying users.

The company also shared that revenue will be flat or in decline through 2026, but will start to turn around in 2027 with slow, single-digit growth, according to Bloomberg. Shares in Match Group fell during the meeting as these proclamations were made.

The share price of Match Group Inc. dropped after a disappointing third quarter earnings report, signaling that consumer interest in paying for dating app subscriptions continues to wane.

According to Business Insider, Match Group shares dropped more than 18 percent after the company reported that paying users on its most popular app Tinder fell 4 percent in the third quarter from the same time period last year, to $9.9 million. The revenue decline for Tinder has been continuous the past few quarters, and Match Group says it expects this slowdown to continue in the fourth quarter.

Hinge continues to be the star of Match Group’s offerings, growing 36 percent year-over-year, though its userbase is still a fraction of Tinder’s.