Bumble is getting rid of swipes, CEO says

Could dating app malaise eventually kill the swipe? For Bumble, at least, that seems to be the case.

In a interview and Axios Thursday, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd confirmed that Bumble will remove the move, which is well known for dating apps of the 2010s.

“We’re saying goodbye to the swipe and hello to what I believe will be a game changer,” Wolfe Herd said.

Bumble plans to revamp its app later this year, following a series of disappointing episodes as the app continues to roll out. losing user fees. In the first quarter of this year, Bumble’s paid users fell nearly 21% to 3.2 million, down from 4 million last year.

Revamping the program is a major intervention, signaling to investors that things are tough. But like any good CEO, Wolfe Herd has done a verbal exercise to say that Bumble is doing a great job of losing money.

“This is a time of real change at Bumble over the last few years,” he said he said on this week’s payroll call. “We have deliberately reset our members. We made a clear decision to prioritize quality over quantity, looking for members who had good intentions, who were busy. This decision reduced the total number, but it helped to improve our environment.”

Based on Wolfe Herd’s previous comments about Bumble’s new strategy, the company is expected to lean towards AI – Bumble is also working on an AI dating assistant called. Beeand the Wolfe Herd has made many comments for years about how AI will be the “charger to love and relationships.”

Of course, dating apps already use AI to decide what users should show each other. But Gen Z is getting really bad at your AI looks, and the Wolfe Herd has shown interest in the future, like owning it. your AI bots another day of AI bots for you. Therefore, it is unclear whether these “Black Mirrors” will attract users in their 20s. The Bumble update isn’t expected to roll out until the last quarter of this year, so users are still adjusting until now.