Bumble Bets on AI To Woo Back Singles With Swipe Fatigue

As young singles ditch the apps and head back to bars to find dates, one of the industry’s biggest platforms, Bumble, is betting that artificial intelligence can win them back.Bumble’s chief executive, Whitney Wolfe Herd, recently announced that the company will abandon the trademark swipe mechanism — which allows users to express interest in someone’s profile by swiping right, or pass by swiping left — in favor of a new system designed to improve matchmaking efficiency.The replacement is an AI assistant called “Bee,” which will probe users on values, interests, and relationship goals, then suggest matches based on their responses. The assistant will notify both parties and explain why they are a strong fit. The technology is currently in testing and has not officially launched. Bumble has also suggested that the AI matchmaker may eventually propose date activities and solicit post-date feedback to better learn a user’s needs. The company will also drop its requirement that women message first in heterosexual matches, a feature that long distinguished Bumble from swipe-based rivals like Tinder. Ms. Wolfe Herd co-founded Tinder but left in 2014 to build Bumble, which has since become the second most-used dating app in the country.The overhaul comes as young singles have grown weary of dating apps — a phenomenon dubbed “swipe fatigue” — and turned instead to in-person encounters or friend setups. A 2025 Forbes survey found that 78 percent of dating app users reported feeling emotionally, physically, or mentally exhausted by the apps at least some of the time.“People are feeling exhausted, they’re feeling fatigued. They feel like the swipe has degraded their love lives,” Ms. Wolfe Herd told Axios. Bumble’s stock has reflected the malaise, tumbling more than 90 percent since its 2021 IPO. The company has struggled to grow engagement and its base of paying subscribers. It remains to be seen whether Bumble can reverse the trend not by leaning into human connection but by reimagining matchmaking with AI, particularly as Gen Z grows increasingly skeptical of the technology. “I can’t imagine young adults who are sick of dating apps and tired of AI will suddenly feel their love life is rejuvenated when those two are combined,” wrote a lifestyle and technology outlet, InsideHook.

Bumble Bets on AI To Woo Back Singles With Swipe Fatigue

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