Bumble is breaking up with the swipe and is making big changes to the dating platform.
With swiping to connect being swiped to the curb, the app is going to use artificial intelligence to help make matches, The New York Times reported.
Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told Axios about the evolution of the app and the digital dating scene.
The news outlet also cited competition with Tinder and Hinge as a reason for the change.
“We are going to be saying goodbye to the swipe and hello to something that I believe is revolutionary for the category,” Wolfe Herd said in “The Axios Show” interview.
Clinical psychologist and author Jenny Taitz said, “Swiping primes people to make superficial, snap judgments,” adding, “It really has turned dating into gaming.”
Shefa Ahsan said the process of swiping is “dehumanizing.”
“People’s faces pop up, and you have to just swipe?” she told the newspaper. “I can’t do that. I don’t know anything about them.”
Therapist and dating coach, Kelsey Wonderlin, said: “People don’t really see each other as real humans on the apps.”
Wonderlin suggests swiping right a lot, meaning accepting the connection, then sending the person questions to get a conversation started.
The Pew Research Center said in 2023 that three in 10 adults in the U.S. use apps to find love, with one in 10 committed relationships starting with a swipe.
But there is burnout too, with about 80% of daters feeling emotionally, physically or mentally exhausted by the apps.
That’s where AI comes in. Bumble launched “Bee,” its assistant that will look at members’ values and relationship goals, using those to suggest matches and explain the reason behind them.
Not everyone thinks AI is the key to connections.
Boston University assistant professor of media science, Kathryn Coduto, told the Times, “A lot of these companies think that A.I. is going to save their apps, or change the dating experience. I think that users are actually very hesitant about that. It goes to concerns about privacy. People don’t know how A.I. is going to use their data.”
They’re also concerned about the algorithms and how they work, whether the app will judge people fairly.
The changes will roll out in some markets in the fourth quarter of 2026, Axios said.
© 2026 Cox Media Group
