Daters are upset with Bumble's latest move

Bumble has announced a massive overhaul lately, but online daters aren't beelining to it.

On Monday, Axios posted its full interview with the dating app's founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, where she discussed the already-announced news that Bumble is killing the swipe feature by the end of 2026. However, she also talked about Bumble's in-development AI dating assistant called Bee, also set for an end of year launch, which was announced back in the company's Q4 2025 earnings call.

Bumble's lean into an AI-powered product seems to be a long time coming, as Wolfe Herd commented back in May 2024 that she saw AI personas as the future of dating.

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However, people across social media got wind of Bumble's AI-forward plan, and they're not impressed. One TikTok user who met her partner on Bumble nearly two years ago said the app has "lost the plot" with its focus on AI. Another TikTokker said she gives up. Another still, a single woman, said she "cannot spend another moment in this f*cking hellscape."

Wolfe Herd posted a statement on her Instagram account on Tuesday to clarify a few things.

"A growing part of the tech world seems to believe human connection can be replicated, automated, or engineered," she wrote. "I believe the opposite, and at Bumble, we are building the opposite."

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Wolfe Herd said Bumble has "used AI for years to improve safety, reduce bad actors, and help people make better, more meaningful connections. But the next chapter of AI should not be about replacing human connection. It should be about strengthening it."

Clarifying that the future of Bumble is "not about automating love," the CEO stated that "the best AI should work quietly in the background so real people can show up fully in the foreground." She also promised "no AI openers, no AI-generated bios."

Bumble's approach is that AI should support people in showing up more authentically, not replace or speak for them, the company told Mashable. The team believes it's important that women have a seat at the table in how AI is applied, and ethical and responsible use is paramount to Wolfe Herd and Bumble.

Most commenters on Wolfe Herd's post weren't convinced by Bumble's AI-focused "future of connection." The top comment asked what the company is doing about combating deepfakes. Wolfe Herd responded, saying that Bumble has supported legislation to fight deepfakes and invests in safety across its product and policies. Bumble works with nonprofit Partnership on AI, a coalition committed to building a framework for the "responsible use of AI-generated media."

"From detection tools and identity protections to partnerships and legal reform, we believe protecting women online must evolve as quickly as the technology itself," she wrote.

Another commenter brought up Wolfe Herd's aforementioned comments about AI personas being the future of dating — at a Bloomberg Tech Summit in 2024, she said onstage, "There is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierge...and then you don’t have to talk to 600 people." On Tuesday's Instagram post, Wolfe Herd called the years-old comment a "sound bite" where "people took a speculative thought experiment and turned it into a product announcement for some reason (click bait)."

"I was talking about the far outer edges of what AI could theoretically do someday, not saying Bumble planned to replace human dating with bots," she added. "In fact, the entire point was the opposite: using AI to reduce noise and help people get to real human connection faster."

Despite the outcry, Bumble is far from the only dating app to add AI features. Both Tinder and Hinge have, as well, with the former introducing an AI-powered matchmaker, Chemistry, and the latter adding AI features to help write better prompt responses and initial messages.

And at the same time, Bumble is also investing more into IRL events, suggesting that it knows there's an appetite for tech-free dating.