More dating-app users are letting AI write their opening lines

Aleksandr Zhadan built a system that sifted through thousands of Tinder profiles and used ChatGPT to manage parts of his conversations with matches.

His approach sits at one end of a change in online dating, where people are handing over pieces of the work that comes before a first meeting. They use artificial intelligence to shape profiles, select photos and compose messages. The central question is becoming harder to avoid: when an opening line lands well, who wrote it?

Survey results differ. In April 2026, a survey of 436 unmarried adults aged 25 to 34 found that 28.2% had used AI for romantic messaging or related dating communication. A November 2025 Eureka survey of 1,022 people in their 20s and 30s with dating-app experience found that 53.1% had sought generative AI advice on romance or dating. The figure rose to 66.3% among men in their 20s.

Match and the Kinsey Institute found that 26% of the 5,001 US singles in their 2025 Singles in America study used AI to improve their dating lives, a 333% rise from the previous year. Nearly half of Gen Z singles in the same study had already used AI in dating. Hinge found that 60% of its younger Gen Z daters, aged 18 to 22, were open to AI help in a 2025 survey of about 30,000 users.

The attraction is easy to see in the arithmetic of an unanswered opener. Research from the University of Michigan found that personalised messages were seen as more trustworthy and engaging than generic ones. Pew Research Center research found that 64% of people were more likely to reply when a message referred to something specific in their profile. Yet 90% of icebreakers on dating apps disappear unread.

A growing set of assistants aims to improve those odds. They include apps that suggest replies from screenshots, tools for profiles and photos, keyboard extensions, live coaching and general chatbots such as ChatGPT. These services are often known as rizz apps or AI wingmen.

LoverSpot calls its AI prompt feature Opening Moves. It describes the tool as offering 'smart, context-aware suggestions based on real details in profiles and photos' to replace 'shallow small talk with thoughtful, specific questions.'

The technology is also becoming part of the apps themselves. Machine learning has three roles inside dating apps: matching people likely to be interested in each other; safety systems that assess photos, video frames, messages and behaviour for nudity, harassment, scams and fake accounts; and media systems for noise suppression, background blur, low-bandwidth codecs and live translation.

AI and machine learning already influence who appears in a user’s feed, which material is blurred before it is seen, and which accounts are banned. They are increasingly shaping what users type to one another. Bumble has an AI-led relaunch scheduled for late 2026.

The companies are pursuing these tools while the sector faces a difficult search for lasting users. Global dating-app revenue fell for the first time in 2025, reaching about $6.07 billion, down approximately 2% year over year. Average monthly subscription churn is near 12.4%, and fewer than 5% of monthly dating-app subscribers are still active after a year.

There are signs of strength at some platforms. Grindr reported Q2 2026 revenue of $138.1 million, up 33%, and raised its full-year guidance to approximately $540 million. The Knot 2025 Real Weddings Study found that Hinge accounted for 36% of app-met engaged couples and Bumble for 20%.

Higher response rates do not settle the question of trust. In the O-net survey, 56.2% said they would be considerably or somewhat less interested if they learned that a romantic message they had liked had been created with AI.

A 2026 study, 'The Cyrano Effect', interviewed 45 people who had either used large language models to manage impressions or received AI-assisted messages. It identified lost trust when AI use came to light, along with the distance that can open between an AI-polished online persona and the person encountered offline.

For singles, the tools offer a way to make a first message more specific and perhaps more likely to be read. They also place a new uncertainty inside the earliest stage of a relationship: how much of the person on the screen is speaking for themselves.