What to know
- Bumble is rolling out an AI-powered matchmaking tool called “Bee” that will select matches for users, aiming to make the dating process more effortless.
- Many Toronto daters are skeptical, expressing concerns about losing the fun of swiping, and whether AI can truly predict attraction or compatibility.
- A dating expert warns that AI could create overly polished profiles, diminish women’s control on the platform, and fail to spot red flags.
Can AI find the love of your life? Bumble’s putting it to the test.
The well-known relationship app Bumble is introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help users find love in late 2026.
How will it work?
A Bumble spokesperson told Now Toronto that members can start with a private conversation with “Bee” to discuss their values and relationship goals. From there, the matchmaking begins.
But the Bee will also help suggest dates and move away from swiping on the app, making it more “effortless.”
Bumble Founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd explained that Bumble’s been about empowering people, especially women, to make meaningful connections on their own terms.
Through Dates, powered by Bee, the app is rethinking why people connect.
“This is about using AI thoughtfully to help people be clearer about what they want and move confidently toward meeting in real life. Bee represents our belief that the best technology helps people connect offline and that’s the kind of innovation we are focused on,” she wrote in a statement.
Now Toronto asked Torontonians about their thoughts on using AI to find their next match.
Read More
- Is the key to Toronto’s dating scene meeting people IRL? We tested it out
- ‘I don’t want to deal with it,’ These Torontonians are ghosting their dates in person, but this dating expert is advising the right way to reject someone
- Too many options, too few matches: Has Toronto’s dating scene made settling down impossible?
Many Torontonians don’t like the change
Toronto resident, Tenzin S., feels that AI will excessively narrow the dating pool.
“I don’t think, like, in the long run, it’s gonna be very beneficial because just because you are looking for specific traits, it doesn’t mean you could learn to love somebody even if they don’t have those specific traits,” she told Now Toronto.
She says she would also miss the excitement of swiping on the apps.
“Swiping is the fun part. You just kind of take them at face value,” Tenzin said.
She also doesn’t believe AI can accurately predict who she finds attractive.
Toronto resident Danny G. agrees.
“I think it’s a mistake. I think you know reliability is kind of iffy with AI,” he told Now Toronto.
He thinks that removing swiping will make it less fun, too.
“I enjoyed it, you know. Sometimes you can be a bit dispassionate about it, and sort of swipe, swipe, swipe, but it was part of the experience I found,” Danny said.
“It seems like Bumble lost its identity with this,” he added.
But Omar A. wasn’t fond of the idea in the first place.
“It dehumanizes people. Like, when you meet somebody in the street, you say hi. You can’t exit a conversation by just swiping on somebody, right? So you got to be, you know, like humane to each other,” he told Now Toronto.
Despite his dislike for swiping, he still disagrees with the idea.
“It’s weird, no, like AI taking over too,” Omar said.
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What does a dating expert have to say?
Founder of matchmaking company Single in the City, Laura Bilotta, believes that this update could present another user’s profile through rose-coloured glasses and replace personal judgment.
“AI could help people present more of a polished version of themselves that’s not really real… I think that it could also help people who are emotionally unhealthy appear more emotionally intelligent or compatible with someone, although it’s not the real person. It’s like an AI avatar doing the work for them,” she told Now Toronto.
With this faulty, trustworthy profile, AI wouldn’t have the same ability to spot red flags that users would otherwise want to know about.
Another negative surrounds Bumble’s previous women-first opening messages, now being removed.
“The brand was around female empowerment, where women have control in dating, and I think that AI would replace personal judgment,” Bilotta said. “I think women would feel uncomfortable with technology making decisions for them about who they should or shouldn’t connect with.”
Playing the devil’s advocate, Bilotta agrees with Bumble’s online thoughts that AI-powered matchmaking will help prevent dating app burnout.
“I think that a lot of people are emotionally exhausted from being ghosted: connecting with someone, not having it not go anywhere, having bad conversations, wasting time on people that were never really compatible, so if AI can help filter out like obvious mismatches earlier, it could save people a lot of time, and then that emotional energy,” she told Now Toronto.
For this update to work, she recommends that Bumble’s AI “Bee” takes into account basic compatibility signals, such as lifestyle differences. For example, is someone spontaneous or sticks to a schedule? Or, is the potential partner right-leaning when you’re left? These are important factors to consider, Bilotta mentioned.
Relationship goals, distance and effort into completing the profile should also be taken into account.
“Then, this is going to help reduce the end-of-scrolling problem, right, that people have, because a lot of times you’re wasting time scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and you’re looking back to take a match with you, and then that might prove match quality,” Bilotta said.
Overall, Bilotta doesn’t believe this should replace human choice in matters of attraction. “It should clean up the dating environment so people can make better choices for themselves.
Got a dating story for us? We want to hear it! Send your experiences to news@nowtoronto.com for a chance to be featured in a future edition of This Is Dating Now.
