Your next Bumble match may be chosen by AI instead of your thumb

Bumble has a new AI assistant: a matchmaker named Bee. The dating app company recently revealed the new dating guru during its fourth quarter earnings call, which was first reported by on TechCrunch.

Essentially, Bee’s job is to learn about what users want in a partner through initial private conversations with the user and help them find matches through Bumble’s new “Dates” tool. Her job will eventually get bigger, too. Bee will help plan dates and even ask for (anonymous) feedback about those dates in the same way a close friend with the inside information might offer. In addition to adding the new AI tool, Bumble will be moving away from swiping right (yes) or left (no) and into entirely new territory with Bee leading the charge.

In an interview with Axios, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said that Bee’s introduction, along with the rest of the changes coming to the app, are due to the fact that users have simply outgrown swiping left or right. “Now, people are feeling exhausted. They’re feeling fatigued,” Wolfe Herd explained, adding, “They feel like the swipe has degraded their love lives.” 

Bee’s introduction seems like a major change for the app. But Bumble it’s the latest in a number of recent changes to the app. While the app used to only allow women to send the first message to potential matches, it abandoned that rule when it introduced the “opening moves” feature, which allowed men to answer preset prompt questions and gave women a 24-hour window to reply. Bumble explained at the time that it was responding to criticism that leaving women with the chore of making the first move “sometimes felt like just another thing to do on top of everything else” on the to-do list.

In a May 5 press release, Wolfe Herd said the brand’s “reset” is already working to improve the app, but now the company is focused on the next phase of its revamp — it’s AI tool.

“We’re now focused on activating this higher-quality member base by launching a fully reimagined Bumble experience on our rebuilt, AI-enabled platform later this year,” the CEO explained. “This next chapter will deliver a more intuitive, personalized way to connect and help members move more confidently and quickly to in-person dates,” Wolfe Herd added. 

For those who have been on dating apps for months or even years, it’s tough to imagine how Bumble will function without swiping and with a virtual assistant in its place. But it’s also tough to imagine how dating apps like Bumble can continue down the same path they’ve been moving along for years, as well. That’s because dating app fatigue has been hard to miss in recent years. According to a 2025 Forbes health survey, 78% of dating app users reported feeling burned out by endless swiping without real results.

“There are so many ways to meet people, but actually forming a real connection is much more rare. A lot of people are stuck between wanting something real and being afraid to really show up for [a relationship], put themselves out there, and truly be vulnerable,” Sabrina Romanoff, Psy.D., a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist and Forbes Health Advisory Board member, says per the report.

“People want connection, but they’re tired of the games, the ghosting, the emotional whiplash. Dating feels like a second job sometimes, with very little pay,” Romanoff adds. Likewise, that burnout showed up in Bumble’s own numbers. According to the brand’s latest earnings report, in the first quarter of 2026, total paying users fell 21.1% to 3.2 million, down from 4 million just last year.  

Burnout is likely a big part of why singles have been shifting away from dating apps for years now. But they aren’t simply staying home. According to data shared with Axios, from 2022 to 2025 singles events advertised on the event’s page Eventbrite doubled. In 2024, event listings aimed at singles rose by 30% and attendance skyrocketed by 85%. Therefore singles are still seeking partners. They just no longer seem to believe in the power of the dating app.

Bumble’s AI is still in its beta-testing stage, but she will be here soon enough for users to test out. Bee is rolling out in select markets sometime in the fourth quarter, the company says. And, as far as dating app burnout goes, it seems she already has her work cut out for her.

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