Meta brings AI dating assistant and ‘Meet Cute’ surprise match feature to Facebook Dating
The service remains a smaller player compared with industry leaders.
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Meta is adding artificial intelligence to its matchmaking play, announcing on Monday that Facebook Dating will soon feature an AI-powered assistant designed to refine the search for potential partners.
The chatbot will allow users to request highly tailored matches — for instance, “a Brooklyn girl in tech” — or to receive help polishing their dating profiles. Alongside the assistant, Meta is introducing Meet Cute, a feature aimed at combating “swipe fatigue” by offering users a weekly surprise match chosen by the platform’s algorithm.
The company said matches among 18- to 29-year-olds on Facebook Dating have grown 10 per cent year-on-year, with hundreds of thousands of new profiles created monthly in that demographic. Still, the service remains a smaller player compared with industry leaders: Tinder attracts around 50 million daily active users, while Hinge draws 10 million, as per a report by TechCrunch.
AI has already become a standard tool across mainstream dating apps. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, struck a partnership with OpenAI last year as part of a $20 million-plus push into AI. That investment has yielded tools such as Tinder’s AI photo selector, which scans users’ photo libraries to recommend profile images, and AI-driven matching features. Hinge, meanwhile, offers AI-generated suggestions for improving profile prompt responses.
Bumble has also rolled out AI-driven functionality. Its founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, drew headlines last year for predicting a future where users’ “AI concierges” could go on preliminary dates with other people’s AI agents to test compatibility before the humans meet.
Meta’s new additions suggest it is keen not to be left behind as AI increasingly reshapes the online dating landscape.
