I heard an interview with the CEO of Bumble discussing how she plans to use AI in her business and all I could think was she is so full of shit her eyes are brown. After she blathered on about financials, growth, the bright future, how Bumble doesn’t see itself as a competitor to Tinder, etc. she was asked about AI.
She said they are creating a premium tier offering that is an AI avatar version of a subscriber which will know your preferences and can automate the “wasted time” of manually sorting, swiping and winnowing down your potential matches. She said customers don’t have time to sort through so many people trying to find their ideal match and wouldn’t it be better to have 3 ideally suited, perfect matches presented instead of many that are not perfect?
Um…sure. If that was actually the problem.
I used Bumble (and Hinge) for several months. While Bumble resulted in me meeting 12 of my 13 dates, it was not a satisfying experience. Hinge connected me with my favorite date, but we were unfortunately not a good match. My “hit rate” for matching with someone and going on a date were so low, neither was worth it.
Maybe other people struggle with having way too many matches that they need to filter out. That was clearly not a problem for me. Then again, I’ll admit, I’m kind of ugly.
But even disregarding my personal experience, I think Bumble is solving the wrong problem. The problem is not identifying a “perfect match” who meets all of your preselected criteria that you believe will result in love.
The problem is identifying someone who is attractive enough (in looks, personality and lifestyle) that you can are willing to accept them as they are and even embrace their differences (and vice versa).
I don’t believe we can find a perfect match using a checklist, an algorithm or a series of red flag/green flag criteria so using AI to do this faster won’t work.
Then again, I’m not the CEO of Bumble whose mission is to drive more revenue for her company (not “help solve the loneliness epidemic and ensure women’s safety” as she professed during her interview).
She’s pitching her solution. I’d wager that she’ll find plenty of people willing to pay more in the hopes of having better better results.
I predict they will pay more. As for better results, I have my doubts.