Before you swipe left or swipe right, a high-tech wingman could be affecting your search for love. A growing portion of the dating pool is using AI to beef up their bios and profile pics and even pickup lines.
Experts told News4 how younger generations are using bots, what they predict could be next for singles of all ages – and how to use AI but leave space to make an authentic connection.
Myriam Khan told News4 she uses AI on a daily basis, including for relationship advice. She recently turned to artificial intelligence not to find a date but to figure out if someone she was seeing was worth keeping.
“There was a guy that didn’t, or wasn’t, giving me consistent responses or wasn’t communicating with me consistently,” she said. She turned to Google Gemini and typed: “Give me some reasons why this could be happening and why I’m in this situation.’”
Khan said the bot gave her a “really good response.”
“It’ll say things like, ‘OK, you just have to focus on yourself,” she said.
And she did. Gemini’s advice gave her the clarity she needed, and the date didn’t turn into anything romantic.
‘How can I use AI to get a leg up in the courtship process?’
The number of people using AI for dating advice has tripled since last year, the new “Singles in America” study by Match and the Kinsey Institute found.
Younger generations are showing the way forward, said Justin Garcia, the Kinsey Institute’s executive director and the chief scientific advisor to Match.
“We’re seeing the young set entirely new standards and rituals. And those of us who are older are learning from them,” he said.
Garcia said he expects to see more single people turn to AI.
“More singles are going to say, how can I use AI to get a leg up in the courtship process? Dating is in many ways about competition,” he said.
The “Singles in America” study of 5,000 people showed about 1 in 4 singles now say they’ve used AI to help their love lives. Nearly half of Gen Z is using it to build better profiles, come up with stronger openers or even screen for compatibility.
Know yourself before you turn to AI, a psychiatrist says
If so many people are using bots to flirt, text and match, what happens to authenticity? And how do you not take it too far?
“You don’t want to let AI take over all of your conversations. Because if someone finds out, they’re going to say, I don’t really trust you,” Garcia said.
“You want to really use it as a tool to refine what you’re putting forward – helping pick the best photo, helping you decide what sort of initial prompts to start a conversation,” he said. “After that, we have to let the human mind – the most attractive part of a human is this ability that we have to connect with another – that’s where we let the human mind take over.”
Knowing yourself and what you’re looking for is key before you try using any dating tools, including AI, said Dr. Lorenzo Norris, a psychiatrist at George Washington University.
“Are we using technology to ease our path into social, like, real, authentic, real-time social connection? Are we using it to replace it?” he asked.
Norris warned that if we let AI do too much of the emotional heavy lifting, we risk forgetting how to connect on our own.
“The more you use AI without developing the critical skills first, the more reliant you’re going to be on it,” he said.
Khan said that’s something she keeps in mind as she turns to bots for help.
“I do have a variety of friends, and that’s why I feel like I also love to have AI as like, you know – like have it in my back pocket as an option,” she said.
News4 reached out to Gemini about any tips or any specific relationship advice people should be cautious about asking AI about but did not hear back.
AI can help us polish a dating profile or decode mixed signals, but the experts say it can’t replace human connection, an awkward first date or that gut feeling that tells you this one might be different.
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