It’s been a record year for Dating Apps. They still don’t understand it

To fix this, several startups have launched niche dating apps—some baffling, others entirely predictable—designed to satisfy unique needs, with many of them built around the promise of AI. to flycreated by a former product manager at Snap, it uses a chatbot to message back and forth with potential daters on your behalf. There is also Rizz, Irisand you liveall that leverages AI to find your soulmate by helping users maneuver through awkward first impressions and conversation. For singles interested in other, say, cutting-edge forms of companionship, ones that completely remove humans from the equation, there are apps like EVA YOU and Moonwho acts as your AI girlfriend.

It’s still too early to tell how effective any of these AI-powered apps are in reducing the possibility of people being ghosted, but a recent report from Hopelab found that 40 percent of young people rely on chatbots to have ongoing conversations. The future of dating, the report concluded, promises to be chattier and stranger than ever.

However, right swipe exhaustion remains a major concern among singles of all demographics. In the nature of dating, app fatigue is contagious. No one knows that better than JB, the date of power from New York I spoke in September. At the time, she was on 200 dates after a breakup — the majority of which came from Hinge and Raya — and expressed a feeling of burnout, even though she couldn’t completely get away from the addictive thrill of the dating app.

I heard from JB in December. He reached out to let me know that he forgot to share the “most disgusting” dating story from our initial series of conversations. “I can’t believe I just thought of that,” she wrote via text message. “A girl on our third date saying, ‘If you fuck me really well tonight, I’ll cancel my other dates this week.’

Did he do it? I shot.

“I was angry. I almost ended the date,” he said. “She was winning until she hit me with that toxic shit.”

JB told me that he is still tired of the applications, but still very much on them. The week we speak, he is fresh from another breakup. A recent courtship in Philadelphia, he said, fizzled after the woman lied about talking to other people. She made the first move on Raya and then established more than one DM of marketing links on Instagram. He had chased her, which was rare and a refreshing change of pace. “I was blown away,” he says. That made it more difficult when the relationship ended. “Did you look for me, just to lie?”

JB is currently in recovery, or what I describe as a period of “side missions” – pet-sitting his neighbor’s cat, surfing TikTok, trying new restaurants. “I was down, but we’re back,” he told me. He wonders if dating apps will ever have a solution for singles like him. “It’s really rotten here.”