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When Russian programmer Aleksandr Zhadan proposed to his girlfriend in 2023, it wasn’t because he had that feeling inside that told him she was the one. It was because ChatGPT told him to. After breaking up with his previous girlfriend in 2021, he used the large language model to automate conversations with over 5,000 women on Tinder who matched his preferences. ChatGPT scheduled over 100 dates, and eventually, he met his wife, Karina Vyalshakaeva. Now, this technology is coming in-house and will impact straight, gay, and bi users alike.

A litany of dating apps that appeal to all sexual orientations — including Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Grindr, and others — are introducing AI "wingmen": chatbots designed to assist with messaging. Tinder has already unveiled “The Game Game”, an AI that helps users practice flirting, and many apps now have features that use AI to aid in profile curation and preference-based matching.

Amid dating fatigue and a shaky industry outlook, the apps are banking on AI to optimize how users find compatible matches. But this raises a uniquely modern question: do efficiency optimization and authentic human connection really go hand in hand?

One reason dating apps may be trying to reinvent the wheel is that they’ve essentially maxed out their user base. Globally, downloads among the five largest dating apps surged from 2.3 million in 2012 to 126 million in 2020. From 2021 onward, however, growth slowed significantly — both globally and in the US — with a minor bump during COVID. Last year saw some of the worst survey data ever, with roughly 80% of Gen Z and Millennial users saying they felt “burned out” by dating apps, despite a firm majority seeking long-term relationships. Not surprisingly, Match Group (which owns Tinder, Hinge, and OKCupid) and Bumble have experienced a steady decline in valuation since 2021. And despite faring better than other apps, Grindr stock plummeted in March 2025. Executives recognize that their apps are floundering.

As the new Match Group CEO, Spencer Rascoff, said in a statement in March, “Too often, our apps have felt like a numbers game rather than a place to build real connections, leaving people with the false impression that we prioritize metrics over experience.”

A spokesman for Bumble echoed that sentiment: “We see opportunities for AI to help [...] optimize user experiences, and empower people to better represent their most authentic selves [...] to make human connection better, more compatible, and safer.”

AI “wingmen” are a key part of this transition. These AIs will offer romance coaching on how to respond to messages for users who struggle to open conversations and may also provide emotional support. If you’re not sure how to keep a conversation going, the AI can even send witty banter and flirtatious messages on your behalf. If you’re not matching, it can send you recommendations to adjust your bio, pictures, and interests. It can even plan your dates, while Grindr’s AI offers travel advice and sex tips.

AI proponents argue the wingman can reduce burnout by putting dating on autopilot, with Roscoff likening potential impacts to how online dating changed the romantic landscape a decade ago. He’s probably right about that. What AI optimists get wrong, however, is not if – but how – it will change the dating landscape.

Dating apps have always trotted out the same language about “creating connections” and “improving user experience” when the market changes as a ploy to satisfy users (behind every new AI strategy is an executive frantically asking, “What’s our AI strategy?!”). Social media companies made similar promises about creating a more connected world, only to create a mental health crisis and worsen political polarization. The AI revolution in dating apps may follow a similar trajectory: utopian promises about creating more connections followed by intensifying the already top-heavy landscape with fewer winners, more losers, and an increasingly lonely, disaffected, and unsatisfied user base.

Zhadan, unsurprisingly a major proponent of AI in dating apps, went on to work on Match Group’s AI chatbot. When I reached out to him, Zhadan told me that AI “isn’t about replacing human interaction — it’s about enhancing it.” Yet his optimism may stem from his own positive experience.

Zhadan is one of the winners in this union of dating and technology. He doesn’t fit the profile of a “struggling user” — someone bringing real-world obstacles into the online dating world. He is handsome, previously had a girlfriend, and shows clear signs of intelligence and disposable income (he spent thousands programming ChatGPT to engage with women on Tinder). He also looks pretty badass driving this boat.

But unlike Zhadan, many guys on dating apps are only looking to increase their body count, not find a long-term partner. Attractive, charismatic, and competitive men, known in pop culture as “power users”, have strategically leveraged dating apps to maximize their access to a larger pool of women. AI can significantly streamline this process. A power user may already be connecting with multiple women a week without AI. With the new technology, he may become a true hookup machine.

Imagine a sharp, high-status guy in his 20s or 30s. He’s already successful with the ladies, but now uses AI to up his game even further. His wingman has been talking to a girl for a few days. It schedules a date in his calendar and summarizes its conversations with her so he knows what they talked about in the app. He knows she will probably sleep with him because his AI filters for women who are looking for something casual. Ultimately, he’s in control, and AI is just a tool to speed up and better stock his conveyor belt of women.

In terms of matches and dates, guys like this are already winners on the apps — a phenomenon called the 80/20 rule, in which a few high-performing users get almost all the attention. Dating apps already tend to select for status-based qualities like wealth, attractiveness, and similar politics in matches. There’s a real possibility that AI-based matching will only further stratify matches among the well-off, well-educated, and conventionally attractive at the expense of everyone else.

While sexually successful men often use dating apps, some are suspicious of them. Some men who prize “physical encounters” with women over relationships were surprisingly uninterested in using AI on dating apps to enhance their sex lives. I spoke to a moderator of r/TheRedPill, a Reddit community of men who see dating as a game of “sexual strategy” in which men and women are locked in a contest of power.

One of the moderators told me the subreddit rarely speaks to the press but was willing to share their official stance because they all hold "a pretty inflexible view" of dating apps and, by extension, AI’s introduction into them.

“Our endorsed stance is that if you are a top option, women will all try to match with those men, and it is primarily based on their attractiveness in photos, photo quality, and perceived lifestyle,” he said. Red Pill bros see women as shallow and “inherently hypergamous.” “If you are using words to get women, you are playing their game.”

Many do not share Red Pill cynicism about gender relations. What this online community does share with the public is a general negative attitude about dating apps, something strongly echoed by the academic community. In February 2025, a group of scholars penned an open letter expressing concern over the lack of regulation of AI in dating apps, which they say leaves the door open to “manipulation”, “deception”, and “unknown risks for vulnerable individuals suffering from loneliness, social isolation, abuse, or mental health issues.” They also fear the development may make users dependent on AI and unable to function on dates without it.

Imagine the inverse of the power user. Some guys who perform poorly on dating apps may increase their matches after AI curates their pictures and cleans up their bios. However, instead of using AI as an optimization tool, these guys may become completely dependent on it. “Connection” is meaningless unless the user can follow through. More likely, the wingman lands dates that go nowhere in person.

In the real world, this user may have a poor appearance and a less-than-healthy social life. He utilizes the wingman in his desperate search for connection. Similar to emotional validation from social media, he becomes hooked on the bot's supportive messages and tips for messaging other users. But when the chatbot gets a girl to go out with him, the chemistry just isn’t there because the AI can’t make the next move for him. And then what’s left besides deeper loneliness and disillusionment?

This scenario seems to be the default assumption for many users. It is unsurprising, given the 80/20 rule, that a recent survey showed 80% of male and 90% of female respondents do not believe that AI in dating apps will lead to more successful relationships. One Redditor said they fear dating app AI will be “dystopian,” with users allowing the chatbot to endlessly lead matches on to avoid the anxiety of personally “hurting someone else’s feelings” — a fate worse than “ghosting.”

Optimization may change how we interact, but it can’t change baseline statistics like the male-female ratio. On Bumble, 67.4% of users are male, and on Tinder, the sex imbalance is even starker, with 76% of users being male. AI cannot change the fact that straight male users or bi men seeking women face an incredibly gender-imbalanced landscape — one in which lower-status men simply cannot compete. Gay men and bi guys seeking other men may be somewhat insulated from these dynamics. Since men are mostly already on the same page in terms of what they want — no-strings-attached sex — same-sex hook-up culture among young men was already about as streamlined as it can get.

Female users will still face many of the same problems they have historically experienced on apps, even if their matches are more preference-based. Well over half of women on dating apps are looking for emotional connections through long-term relationships or casual dating. Only 13% of women on dating apps want casual sex. AI promises a solution for women looking for connection, but it may simply swap out one authenticity problem for another.

Many women looking for connections may feel anxiety and disenchantment because they wonder whether they are bonding with their match or just the algorithm. What good is matching based on niche interests if those interests are explored over text by an AI whose charisma is not reflected during the in-person date? How will women feel if those interests are exploited by power users looking for a hook-up? Most worryingly of all, what if women start trying to cut out the middleman and just pursue an emotional connection with AI directly?

Despite the downsides for losers and the opportunities for manipulation by winners, AI’s potential role in making dating apps safer and more enjoyable, especially for women, who often face “inappropriate behavior”, is a possible upside. Zhadan sees AI as the next safety innovation for dating apps. He imagines “a dating world where AI can actively monitor and filter out harmful messages, creating a respectful environment for all users.”

Early AI tools to eliminate fake profiles and scams have been remarkably successful. To Bumble’s credit, they introduced an AI tool last year called Deception Detector that reportedly blocked 95% of scam accounts and fake profiles. Tinder and OkCupid have implemented similar measures to detect scam accounts and scan for scammy language in chats. Ironically, there is an AI solution to an AI-created problem. What remains to be seen is if AI safety features can keep up with increasingly advanced AI scams designed to evade detection.

The introduction of AI into dating apps may also resolve the fatigue associated with endless swiping through the introduction of automatic preference-based matching. However, users may be swapping one form of fatigue for another. Endless swiping will be replaced by uncertainty about whether you’re speaking to a human or AI. Optimizing intimate interactions will make some users dependent on the technology and worsen their social deficits.

If society should learn any lesson from social media and dating apps, it is that we should be reflexively skeptical of promises of connection from companies whose profit motive is twisted to prioritize screen time over fulfillment. It seems doubtful that the introduction of AI into dating apps will translate into significant benefits for struggling companies either. Companies have implemented new features in the past to increase “connection” that yielded few market returns, and now AI chatbots are being rolled out with the hopes that they will actually turn things around.

The old pattern of optimistic promises will likely be met with the typical outcome of increased inequality between winners and losers, worse mental health, more dependence on technology, and uncertainty about how bad actors will use AI to evade safety tools. With all the promises of more connection, it is likely that AI will largely benefit high-performing users who had little need for it in the first place. Dating apps will still be a major player in the dating market for years to come, but with more burned-out users jumping off apps to find true connections, apps will have to compete with their greatest rival yet: real life.

Published Aug 26, 2025