Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of the dating app Bumble, said that artificial intelligence (AI) could revolutionise the way people connect online.
Speaking at Bloomberg Tech in San Francisco, Ms Herd said that the women-focused dating app is embracing AI. She added that the use of AI is necessary “to help create healthier and more equitable” dating experiences.
Talking about why the involvement of AI is necessary, Ms Herd said that “dating is exhausting” and she wishes Bumble to be “the best place on the internet for women”.
She also gave an insight into how modern dating could look like with the growing use of AI. Ms Herd also admitted to the fact that a person could be talking to an “AI dating concierge” in future.
Ms Herd added, “Loneliness is actually killing us. And social media, while it has its benefits, it is not social media. It is anti-social media. So I think there is something really powerful about the technology that we are building to really connect us, go online, to get offline. And that is going to be absolutely critical for the next generation, the current generation, and for bringing us closer together.”
Talking about women making first move through Bumble, Ms Herd said, “What we heard from over 70 per cent of the women that we spoke to was ‘we love making the first move, but we don’t love how we make the first move.’ Sending a message to 70 matches is exhausting. Women already have so much work every day. We kept talking to all these women of all ages. They are like ‘Dating is exhausting’.”
Ms Herd said, “So we heard from them that we wanted to preserve the safety and the original inspiration behind making the first move, which was to put women in the driver’s seat and also to remove a lot of rejection from men. Dating was a broken system.”
She added that Bumble’s new CEO Lidiane Jones will help in making way for AI integration in the app.
Ms Heard added, “We are obsessed with our customers. For several years, I read every single email. They went to my phone. I was the feedback person. So no one realised that the CEO was responding to them. I was essentially the first line of communication. And we still do that. And so what we are doing is we are leaning into the things people don’t like, the things that are stressing them. And we are saying, how do we be the best place on the internet for women? So with Lidiane’s expertise in AI and her unbelievable technology background, we are just going to innovate.”
On Bumble’s future with AI’s involvement, Ms Herd said, “If you want to get really out there, there is a world where your [AI] dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierges.”
She added, “No. No. Truly. And then you don’t have to talk to 600 people. It could scan all of San Francisco for you and say, ‘These are the three people you really ought to meet.’ And so that is the power of AI if harnessed the right way.”
