The letters AI have always been part of the word dating. But now, it looks like AI—meaning artificial intelligence—is becoming a bigger and bigger part of dating.
Nearly half of Gen Z singles have already used AI in their dating lives, according to the 14th annual Singles in America study conducted by Maatch.com. And this study found the use of AI by singles to have grown by a whopping 333% over the previous year. Yep, looks like AI is changing the process and meaning of online dating in more ways than one.
Funded by Match and conducted by Dynata in association with The Kinsey Institute, the Singles in America study surveyed a demographically representative sample of 5,001 single folks in the U.S. ranging in age from 18 to 98. Included were Gen Zers (those 18 to 27), Millennials f28 to 43), Gen Xers (44 to 59), and Boomers, 60 years and above.
The singles survey wasn’t just singularly about AI, as it included questions about a variety of matters. But like a growing number of things these days, AI was part of it. When discussing the inclusion of AI questions into the survey with me, Justin Garcia, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Advisor to Match and Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute, explained: “It’s still a minority but more and more people are using AI in dating, So we asked both about the use of it and the openness to using it.”
Of course, AI is not just a singular thing. Instead, it’s an umbrella term encompassing anything that allows a computer to do what a human brain normally would do—evaluate things, make decisions, even design something. Therefore, AI algorithms and models can vary greatly in design, complexity, accuracy, reliability, usefulness, and how they can and should be used.
AI Sorts Through Potential Online Matches
One way AI is being used in dating is to help sort through all the profiles and possibilities provided by dating websites and apps. After all, with so many dating profiles saying the same things—like “I love to laugh” (as opposed to “I hate to laugh”) or “looking for my other half” or “hate drama”—online dating can seem like a firehose of how-do-you-tell-people-apart-except-for-what-they-seem-to-look-like-in-their-profile-pic. The plethora of profiles can lead to the paradox of choice, whereby people sort possibilities by superficial characteristics—like, surprise, surprise, dating profile photos—rather than by more important characteristics, such as personality and values.
In theory, AI could offer a little more intelligence to do such sorting. It can sift through large amounts of data quickly and efficient;y This assumes, though, that the specific AI algorithm used is designed appropriately and actually does what it is supposed to do properly.
Asking AI for such help can be like asking some random person you meet on the street for help. You’ve got to know its thought process and whether it’s choosing based on the right things rather than just prioritizing whoever happens to be, say, carrying fish in their dating profile photos.
These days, more and more dating websites and apps are providing AI tools to help. At the same time, daters may be feeding what they find into stand-alone AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and, for certain situations, Grammarly.
The survey did find that 26% of respondents felt that AI is making online dating easier, with 22% reporting more matches, 24% reporting better matches, 21% appreciating the resulting time efficiency, and 44% wanting AI to filter matches for better compatibility.
AI Helps Daters with What to Say
Another way daters are using or would like to use AI is with that whole communicating-with-other-people thing. The survey found that 41% would use AI for in-person conversation starters, and 40% want AI’s help in crafting the “perfect” dating profile, whatever that means. Therefore, what you see and hear online and on dates may be increasingly a mix of “me, myself, and AI.”
Iis this a good or bad thing? It can be good when AI helps you help others to get to know you better. AI could help do what friends, family, and dating coaches have been doing for years—not letting you use that shirtless mirror selfie as your dating profile photo.
It can be problematic, though, when it obscures who you and other people really are. Ultimately, dating is about finding the right match in real life. Thus, the sooner each person can get to know the real other, the better. That moment can be greatly delayed if people are using AI to pretend to be who they are not.
Artificial Intelligence Essential Reads
“One of the things we are seeing is that people are using AI for themselves, but they’re still quite cautious about others using it,” observed Garcia. “So I can use AI to help pick out a good picture, or I can use it to figure out what to say to you. But I don’t want you using it too much because then I am not sure that we will have an honest mating language, honest advertising.”
AI as Online Dates—i.e., as Romantic Partners
Speaking of pretend, singles aren’t using AI just to find a romantic partner. Many are using AI as a romantic partner. The survey found that 16% of singles have engaged with AI as a romantic companion. This percentage was highest among Gen Zers, at 33%, followed by Millennials at 23%.
And it’s not that all the singles using AI as romantic partners have completely given up on humans. In fact, the survey found that those actively dating humans were nearly three times more likely than inactive daters (23% versus 8%) to turn to AI for companionship.
Forty-five percent reported that AI partners made them feel more understood, and 44% said that AI offered stronger emotional support. And here’s a hot take: 36% reported more sexual pleasure with AI than with a human partner.
Is Having an AI Partner Considered Cheating?
There is an AI in the word unfaithful, but not everyone who responded to the survey agreed about what would constitute infidelity when it comes to AI. Among the survey respondents, 40% felt that having an AI boyfriend/girlfriend while already in an exclusive relationship with a human would be considered cheating, 39% indicated that sexual chats with AI would be a no-no, and 38% said the same about emotionally intimate conversations with AI. On the flip side, 41% believed that none of those activities would be considered cheating.
Ultimately, there is no consensus on what is OK or not with the use of AI in dating. What’s most important in dating is open communication and finding the right match. It can help to be open and clear with your dates about how you may be using AI and what might constitute cheating with AI. After all when you bring AI into dating, it is not simply me, myself, and AI. There are other people involved, too.
