Navigating a new city and job, Marie Lansley is on the hunt for a partner, and like many, she’s turning to artificial intelligence for a helping hand in modern dating.
The 36-year-old San Franciscan admits she’s been “trying everything” to find love, including enlisting AI chatbots to assist with starting conversations – a task she finds challenging on dating apps despite her ease in person.
This approach is far from unique, with AI chatbots increasingly serving as dating coaches and relationship experts. Lansley, while optimistic, acknowledges the disconnect between romance and technology.
“I am open to AI finding me the love of my life, but I’m also not fully convinced that it can,” she said. “AI is great at making dating more efficient. But the chemistry — that’s always going to be analog.”
Adopters utilise the technology in diverse ways, from patronising AI matchmaking services and building dating profiles to, most commonly, drafting messages and interpreting received messages.
Lansley alternates between OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, while others opt for Elon Musk and X’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and other platforms. Dating apps and AI companies are actively embracing this trend, showcasing personalised relationship advice on TikTok.
However, the technological intervention raises questions about authenticity.
“Claude is the new Cyrano,” dating coach Carey Gaynes said, referencing the 19th-century French play where one character secretly crafts romantic words for another.
“You’re using a voice that isn’t yours,” she said, adding that daters of all ages are adopting the technology, acknowledging its potential utility but also expressing concern about overreliance.
Ultimately, the role of AI in romance remains a complex issue, eliciting a spectrum of excitement, resistance, and scepticism, much like many modern dating arrangements.
AI is writing icebreakers, offering advice and matchmaking
Lansley said she has been startled by how chatbots can appear to display emotional intelligence.
When doing an onboarding call with the AI matchmaker on the app Known, she said the questions the bot asked went “one or two levels deeper” than traditional dating app questions and it seemed to be striving for empathy.
It doesn’t necessarily lead to better results — her first match was not a perfect fit.
Mason Naung, a 25-year-old student in Los Angeles, said he doesn’t use chatbots for message ideas, but could see the benefit of it for “icebreakers” during the early back-and-forth with someone.
“I’ve been on Hinge on and off for a year or two, and sometimes I kind of struggle to think about what the opening line should be like with this girl, right?” he said. But if the AI-written messages go beyond those initial exchanges, that would be a “small red flag” in his mind.
Just as chatbots can help start conversations, they also can help end things. Dani Cohen, a 27-year-old business owner in San Diego, said she would much rather be sent an AI-written farewell message by someone she’s been on a few dates with than be “ghosted,” or cut off without a word.
“Obviously, in a perfect world, everyone knows exactly what they want to say and how to say it in the kindest way possible and they do that. That’s not the world we live in,” she said. “Anything to get people to communicate, and to communicate their thoughts kindly and effectively, is great.”
Skepticism persists on ‘outsourcing’ love life
Several people who spoke with The Associated Press, including those who have turned to AI for dating help, expressed reservations about using the technology to help with deeply personal aspects of their life. Many adopters said they had a line they wouldn’t cross when it would be inappropriate to use AI for dating.
Others couldn’t dream of turning to a chatbot for help with their love life at all.
Clara Sullivan, a 22-year-old student in Los Angeles, said she would not reply to a potential partner if she knew they were sending her AI-written messages.
“I think it’s really scary how reliant people are on it,” Sullivan said. “It’s completely gotten rid of people’s ability to think creatively and on their own.”
Many feel the same way. A 2025 survey from the Pew Research Center found 53% of U.S. adults say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively. Half of those polled said they feel AI will worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships.
Still, the marriage of AI with the highly lucrative dating industry was likely inescapable. Many dating apps have been integrating AI into their platforms for years.
Tinder has an AI-powered feature called Chemistry that suggests profiles tailored to a user’s interests. Hinge has AI-powered conversation starters and feedback tools to help build users’ profiles and make interactions smooth.
The founder of the app Bumble recently said the platform will soon ditch the well-known swipe feature, instead pivoting toward AI-driven matchmaking. After facing some backlash to the decision, Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd wrote in a statement that said what they’re building “is rooted in a simple belief: technology should make love and connection feel more human, not less.”
Some see tradeoffs to AI’s role in romance
Mohammed Nizami, 23, said he turns to AI for some things in his life, but not his dating pursuits.
“We’re all craving for some degree of authentic connection. Certainly with your partner, you want that,” he said. “If there’s some filter or barrier between you and your partner or potential partner, I think that’s just not a great way to start a relationship.”
Nizami said chatbots may not even provide the best guidance. The sycophantic nature of many chatbots, he said, might be “good for your own mental comfort” but does not necessarily lead to the soundest advice.
AI is likely going to play a growing role in modern dating life, despite the hesitations.
“It’s kind of a sad commentary on the state of the world. Dating is supposed to be one of the things that cannot be replaced, right?” said Jake Clay, a 30-year-old content creator in New York City. “It’s kind of sad to think that something so pivotal to your life journey is being outsourced to an AI who can’t understand the emotions around it.”
Clay did say he’s been receiving fewer texts from friends asking him to decode a message from potential partners, as they now turn to chatbots.
Clay wryly said he appreciates AI “lifting the load” there but also called the situation a “Catch-22” since it’s “circumventing some of the normal processes in life that I feel like should be a little bit more sacred.”