Bumble explores an AI-powered dating experience

Bumble will soon be testing an AI dating experience called, simply, Dates.

Dates will be powered by Bee, a standalone product feature designed as a personal dating assistant, Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO, said during its Q4 2025 earnings call.

As Bumble told Mashable, users will start using Dates as an ongoing conversation to discuss values, relationship goals, communication style, lifestyle, and dating goals. These conversations, which will be with “Bee,” will obviously be private and can be shared on your profile. Users will also be able to control which parts of the conversation Bee uses to search for matches.

Then, Bee will identify the most compatible profile and notify both users with an explanation of why they match. If the interest is mutual, the communication moves to a conversation.

“In order to fully recover and return to growth, we must focus on product innovation and technology, which is where our efforts are now,” Wolfe Herd said during Bumble’s earnings call. Bumble’s total revenue and paying users decreased year-over-year (14 percent and 21 percent respectively) compared to Q4 2024.

Wolfe Herd said that since the start of this year, he has been spending 90 percent of his days with technology and product teams “reimagining what finding love looks like in the age of AI.”

“We’re redesigning the entire Bumble experience from start to finish,” he said. Bumble can’t use its legacy technology stack (the set of technologies that includes building an app), so it’s building a new cloud-native technology stack with a targeted launch in Q2. Wolfe Herd said that it is not just a backend development, but a completely new platform is coming.

Wolfe Herd also admitted to burnout and frustration with dating apps as of late. “Dating lovers across the industry are unhappy with being photographed and potentially getting fired for swiping,” he said. “Bumble 2.0 introduces a chapter-based framework designed to help members tell their stories more authentically and understand each other more deeply.”

He said AI prioritizes fewer matches, is more relevant to volume, combats swipe fatigue, and helps members develop real-world connections.

Dates beta is launching soon, and future iterations are expected to include date suggestions and anonymous feedback. Bumble already introduced other AI features, Profile Guidance and Photo Feedback, last month.

Back in 2024, Wolfe Herd discussed an AI-powered dating concierge that could be for you, so it’s no surprise that the app is taking this approach.

Other major dating apps, notably Tinder and Hinge, have also added AI features in the past few years. Tinder is reportedly testing an AI matchmaker, while Hinge’s latest AI feature helps start better conversations. Hinge’s founder, Justin McLeod, left the app last year to launch an AI dating service called Overtone.