Bumble founder explains how AI will help couples meet on dating app as women no longer make first move

10 May 2024, 19:26

By Kieran Kelly

@kellyjourno

Founder of the popular dating app Bumble, on which women famously make the first move, has explained how AI will help shape the future of online dating.

“You could, in the near future, be talking to your AI dating concierge. You could share your insecurities,” founder of Bumble Whitney Wolfe Herd said on stage at the Bloomberg Technology Summit.

“There is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierges.”

Despite her idea being met with laughter from the audience, Ms Herd insisted it would be the future reality of dating apps, such as Bumble.

“No no truly,” Wolfe Herd continued.

“And then you don’t have to talk 600 people. It could scan all of San Francisco for you and say these are the three people you really ought to meet. So that’s the power of AI if harnessed the right way.”

It comes after Bumble announced women would no longer have to message first on the app, which was the original point of the dating website.

Ten years after the app was launched, men will soon be able to start the conversation on Bumble.

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The new feature will be called “opening moves”, which will allow women to toggle a setting that allows men to message them first.

However, the default setting will remain for women to make the first move.

“We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections,” the new CEO Linda Jones told CNN after taking over from founder Herd.

“I don’t anticipate that the number of people using online dating is going to go down, quite the opposite, but there is a higher bar … So we’re taking it as a great call to action to center ourselves on our mission.”