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Will dating app malaise finally kill off the swipe? For Bumble, at least, that seems to be the case.<\/p>\n
In an interview<\/a> with Axios on Thursday, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd confirmed that Bumble will get rid of swiping, the defining feature of 2010s dating apps.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to be saying goodbye to the swipe and hello to something that I believe is revolutionary for the category,\u201d Wolfe Herd said. <\/p>\n Bumble is planning to overhaul its app later this year, following several disappointing quarters in which the app consistently lost paying users<\/a>. In this year\u2019s first quarter, Bumble\u2019s paid users fell about 21% to 3.2 million, down from 4 million last year.<\/p>\n Redesigning the app is a pretty serious intervention, signaling to investors that the situation is dire. But like any good CEO, Wolfe Herd has done some verbal gymnastics to argue that Bumble is doing a very good job at losing money.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a period of real transformation at Bumble over the past few quarters,\u201d she said<\/a> on this week\u2019s quarterly earnings call. \u201cWe have executed a deliberate reset of our member base. We made a clear choice to prioritize quality over quantity, focusing on well-intentioned, engaged members. That decision reduced overall scale, but meaningfully improved the health of our ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on Wolfe Herd\u2019s past comments about Bumble\u2019s new direction, the company is expected to lean into AI \u2014 Bumble is even working on an AI dating assistant called Bee<\/a>, and Wolfe Herd has made many comments<\/a> over the years about how AI will be \u201ca supercharger to love and relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, dating apps already use AI to decide what users should be shown to one another. But Gen Z is trending more negative toward in-your-face AI features, and Wolfe Herd has expressed interest in more extreme futures, like having personal AI bots<\/a> that date other AI bots for you. So, it\u2019s unclear if these \u201cBlack Mirror\u201d-like overtures will effectively attract users in their 20s. Bumble\u2019s overhaul isn\u2019t expected to launch until the last quarter of this year, so users will still be swiping for now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n