To fix this, a number of startups launched niche dating apps – some surprising, others completely predictable – designed to meet unique needs, many of them built around the promise of AI. VolarCreated by a former product director at Snap, it uses a chatbot to send messages to potential daters on your behalf. there is also Ridge, irisAnd HilariousAll of which leverage AI to help users find their life partner by helping them with first impressions and awkward conversations. For singles interested in another, let's say, avant-garde type of companionship that removes humans from the equation entirely, there are apps like eva ai And lunaWho acts as your AI girlfriend.
It's still too early to say how effective any of these AI-powered apps are at reducing the chances of people being ghosted, but a recent report HopeLab found that 40 percent of youth rely on chatbots to continue conversations. The report concludes that the future of dating promises to be more conversational and stranger than ever.
Still, the tedium of swiping right remains a major concern among people across every demographic. In the realm of dating, app fatigue is contagious. No one knows it better than JB power dater I spoke from New York in September. At the time, he had gone on 200 dates since the breakup — the majority of which came from Hinge and Raya — and he expressed feelings of jealousy, even as he found himself completely free from the addictive thrill of app dating. Couldn't get away from.
I heard from JB in December. He contacted me to let me know that he'd forgotten to share the “most touching” dating story from our initial series of conversations. “I can't believe I thought of this until recently,” he wrote via text message. “On our third date a girl is saying, 'If you fuck me really well tonight I'll cancel my other dates this week.'”
Did he? I retaliated.
“lost my temper. I almost ended the date,” he said. “She was winning until she threw that toxic shit on me.”
JB told me he's still tired of the apps, but still hooked on them. The week we talk, she's fresh from another breakup. A recent courtship in Philadelphia failed when the woman lied about talking to other people, he said. He made the first move on Raya and later he set more bond trading DMs on Instagram. She had followed him, which was rare and a refreshing change of pace. “I was shocked,” he says, which made it even more difficult when the relationship ended. “He contacted me just to lie to me?”
JB is currently on the rebound, or what he describes to me as a period of “side quests” — petting your neighbor's cat, surfing TikTok, trying new restaurants. “I was in bad shape but we came back,” he told me. She wonders if dating apps will ever have a solution for single people like her. “It's really rotten here.”