From drafting first messages to softening breakups, AI chatbots are increasingly used as dating advisers. For some users, it’s practical emotional scaffolding; for others, it feels like outsourcing chemistry—sparking skepticism even as major apps and leading m
When Marie Lansley logs onto dating apps, she finds herself doing something that would have felt strange years ago: opening a chat window first.
The 36-year-old. freshly moved to a new city and hunting for a new partner. said she’s been “trying everything. ” including help from artificial intelligence. She consults AI chatbots for help starting conversations—something she says she struggles with on dating apps even though she’s comfortable doing it in person. Lansley said she’s optimistic about what the technology can do. but she also recognizes the mismatch between romance and machine precision.
“I am open to AI finding me the love of my life, but I’m also not fully convinced that it can,” Lansley said. “AI is great at making dating more efficient. But the chemistry—that’s always going to be analog.”
For dating app users like Lansley, AI isn’t just a tool—it’s becoming the substitute for a friend’s nudge. And that shift is landing with a jolt, especially when it comes to the very human work of flirting, listening, and—later—saying goodbye.
Carey Gaynes. a dating coach. likened the experience to Cyrano de Bergerac. the 19th-century French play where one man provides romantic words for another. “Claude is the new Cyrano,” Gaynes said, referencing the chatbot by name. “You’re using a voice that isn’t yours.” She said she hears about daters turning to the technology both from her client base and from her YouTube channel. Coffee with Carey. Gaynes said usefulness is real—but overreliance worries her.
Lansley said she’s even been startled by the way chatbots can seem to show emotional intelligence. During an onboarding call with the AI matchmaker on the dating app Known. she said the questions the bot asked went “one or two levels deeper” than traditional dating app questions and seemed to be striving for empathy. She also acknowledged the limits: her first match wasn’t a perfect fit.
Not everyone wants AI to write the next move beyond the first hello. Mason Naung. a 25-year-old student in Los Angeles. said he doesn’t use chatbots for message ideas. but he can see the appeal for “icebreakers” early on. “I’ve been on Hinge on and off for a year or two. and sometimes I kind of struggle to think about what the opening line should be like with this girl. right?” he said. But if AI-written messages go beyond those initial exchanges, Naung said it would be a “small red flag” to him.
Where chatbots are dividing people most is not just in getting started—it’s in how people end things.
Dani Cohen. a 27-year-old business owner in San Diego. said she’d rather be sent an AI-written farewell message by someone she’s seen a few times than be “ghosted. ” or cut off without a word. “Obviously. in a perfect world. everyone knows exactly what they want to say and how to say it in the kindest way possible and they do that. That’s not the world we live in,” she said. “Anything to get people to communicate, and to communicate their thoughts kindly and effectively, is great.”.
That practical argument—using AI to keep communication kind—sits uneasily beside another fear: that when romance is mediated by chatbots, people lose something irreplaceable about themselves.
Some users say they can draw a line between appropriate and inappropriate uses. Others said they couldn’t imagine turning to a chatbot for help with deeply personal aspects of their love life at all.
Clara Sullivan. a 22-year-old student in Los Angeles. said she wouldn’t reply to a potential partner if she knew they were sending her AI-written messages. “I think it’s really scary how reliant people are on it,” Sullivan said. “It’s completely gotten rid of people’s ability to think creatively and on their own.”.
Sullivan’s concern echoes broader polling. A 2025 survey from the Pew Research Center found 53% of U.S. adults say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively. Half of those polled said they feel AI will worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships.
Even so, the dating industry’s embrace of AI looks increasingly hard to reverse. Dating apps have been integrating AI for years. Tinder has an AI-powered feature called Chemistry that suggests profiles tailored to a user’s interests. Hinge has AI-powered conversation starters and feedback tools to help build users’ profiles and make interactions smooth.
The direction is also moving toward matchmaking. The founder of the Bumble app recently said the platform will soon ditch the well-known swipe feature and instead pivot toward AI-driven matchmaking. After facing backlash to the decision. Bumble’s CEO and founder. Whitney Wolfe Herd. wrote in a statement that what they’re building is rooted in a belief: “Technology should make love and connection feel more human. not less.”.
For Mohammed Nizami, 23, the industry’s momentum doesn’t erase his own boundaries. Nizami said he turns to AI for some things in his life but not his dating pursuits. “We’re all craving for some degree of authentic connection. Certainly with your partner, you want that,” he said. “If there’s some filter or barrier between you and your partner or potential partner. I think that’s just not a great way to start a relationship.”.
Nizami also said chatbots may not even provide the best guidance. He pointed to the sycophantic nature of many chatbots, saying it might be “good for your own mental comfort” but not necessarily the soundest advice.
New York City content creator Jake Clay put the concern in starker terms. He said AI in dating feels like the world is handing people a shortcut where it matters most. “It’s a sad commentary on the state of the world. Dating is supposed to be one of the things that cannot be replaced, right?” Clay said. “It’s kind of sad to think that something so pivotal to your life journey is being outsourced to an AI who can’t understand the emotions around it.”.
Clay said he’s noticed a change in how his friends communicate too. He said he’s been receiving fewer texts from friends asking him to decode a message from potential partners. as they now turn to chatbots. Clay said he appreciates AI “lifting the load. ” but he also described AI in dating as “circumventing some of the normal processes in life that I feel like should be a little bit more sacred.”.
The thread connecting these reactions is simple: AI can make dating faster. smoother. and sometimes kinder in tone—but it also introduces a new question that users can’t escape. When the first words—and the last words—are drafted by a machine. what happens to the human parts that come before chemistry takes over?.
Across the examples—from Lansley’s optimism to Sullivan’s refusal, from Cohen’s preference over ghosting to Naung’s “small red flag”—the debate is no longer theoretical. It’s playing out in inboxes and message threads right now.
AI chatbots dating apps relationship advice Tinder Chemistry Hinge AI Bumble AI matchmaking Known AI matchmaker Pew Research Center ghosting icebreakers