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Dating app Bumble is getting into artificial AI. At the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday, Bumble introduced a new AI assistant it calls “Bee,” designed to connect with people who learn their “needs, relationship goals, communication style, lifestyle, and dating goals” through private chats. It then uses that information to help find the right user.
Currently, Bee is in the pilot phase and being tested internally, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told investors, but it’s launching a beta soon.
With Bee, the company envisions being able to capture more information about Bumble users, as it learns more about each person’s story and interests. This could set Bumble’s app apart from others like Tinder, which has been revamped as the dating app market has been disrupted by Gen Z users.
Bumble says users will interact with Bee like they do with other AI chatbots, by typing and speaking in a conversational way.
At first, Bee will be used to promote a new relationship called “Dates” that uses AI to recommend matches, but in the future, Bumble says Bee will move to other areas, such as offering date suggestions or asking for anonymous comments from your first match.
In “Dates,” Bee learns about the user through private conversations. Then it identifies two people who have similar goals, interests and relationship goals. All users are introduced in the app and explained why they make a good match.
The addition is part of the dating app’s growing and robust AI technology, which has so far marketed itself as focusing on the needs of women. The company pioneered things like the “women first message,” body shaming bans, and tools that cracked down on unsolicited porn, among others.
It is now looking to use AI to regain user growth amid a dating market that is seeing younger users, especially Gen Z, tired of swiping.
Instead, Herd said Bumble will try to remove the long-established conversion process in select markets to see how users react. Instead of prioritizing swipes as “yes” or “no,” Bumble is looking to implement other features, such as new “chapter” profiles where members can interact in different sections of a user’s profile. This will give Bumble more data to feed into its AI system and algorithms.
“We’re going to be introducing powerful ways to get someone to show interest in your story, not just your profile, and that’s going to drive engagement, spark conversation, and drive better KPIs across the board – like engagement and better conversation,” said Wolfe Herd. “You’ll also see us being very intentional about staying offline against what people call social media.”
The company is also looking at other ways to reach Gen Z, a group that often prefers to hang out in groups over single dates to get to know people.
The company has been working to add AI to its software for years, releasing updates like AI image selection and comments tools, for example, and in places like security. Wolfe Herd told investors that Bumble’s back-end hardware was replaced as the app infused itself with AI.
The company said better than expected benefits to q4, money of $224.2 million and average income per payer rose 7.9% to $22.20. Sales were up 40% on average.
