The owner of Tinder Match Group is delaying hiring to pay for the growing number of AI tools

You might think the big story in Match Group’s first quarter earnings is the Tinder update. Dating app fees it has also gone up a bit after quarter after quarter of decline.

But we want to comment on a comment made by the chief financial officer about how the company is delaying hiring right now because it needs more money to pay for AI equipment for its employees.

Ah yes, the perfect “let’s blame the AI” option!

Speaking to analysts on the company’s first-quarter earnings call, Match Group CFO Steven Bailey talked about how the social media giant was investing in AI technology to use within the company — and how Match pays.

“We’re making a big push around AI to help them. We’re giving every employee in the company access to all the technology. We’re giving them the training they need to succeed. We’re setting expectations. We really want to be an AI company,” Bailey said.

“We think it’s a great opportunity. But this equipment costs a lot of money, as I’m sure you know, so the way we’re going to help pay for it is to reduce our hiring schedule for the rest of the year,” he said.

The company assured investors that the impact would not be financial, as the slow pace of hiring and declining productivity would make the program more costly. In addition, Match Group is betting that the increasing use of AI in the workforce will increase revenue growth, the analyst explained.

While on the surface this looks like another example of AI taking over human jobs – in this case, forcing a company to reduce the number of open spaces – there may be more to the story.

Let’s not forget that Match Group’s flagship app, Tinder, has struggled in recent years. This quarter could be the beginning of a change, as users every month it fell by 7% in March compared to a sharp decline of 10% a year ago. Tinder subscriptions also grew for the first time since 2024, but only by 1%, as Bloomberg he pointed.

This is probably a good sign for Tinder. Or it can be a temporary attraction driven by the user’s interest in different things control and new, such as IRL events. Time will tell.

A relationship goes through constant changes

Match Group remains a company that needs to work to squeeze more revenue from its shrinking, inactive user base — which, according to the company, it did just that. Similar a total of $864 million in the first quarter, the increase is 4% per year. However, his next quarter comparison coming in lower – about $850-$860 million, down 2% year-over-year.

All of these problems come after months of what appears to be a growing distaste for dating apps among teenagers. These kinds of changes are seen by people choice to meet in real lifemaybe in search of attention, like running, book clubsor a what unites them and other people, who, in turn, expand their network, increasing their chances of meeting someone new.

The condition is associated with a the revival of nostalgic techsuch as digital cameras, broadcast phones, boomboxes, and even landline phones, reflecting a generation that is growing tired of being constantly connected and looking for analog entertainment.

Match Group is aware of this huge trend and says it wants to address the issue by increasing the number of its IRL events.

“Gen Z really wants to connect. They know they want to meet new people. They just want to do it in a slow, low-key way that doesn’t feel like a job interview,” Match’s CFO Spencer Rascoff told investors on the phone. “Traditional dating apps are very structured and can be intimidating to a user under 30. So, I think the growth of alternative ways to meet new people speaks to how Gen Z is trying to find ways to connect less.”

“Obviously we’ve changed our approach to accommodate that,” he said.