Dating apps and websites have become the new standard when it comes to finding a date. But can artificial intelligence help people find love? While 30% of internet users aged 18-29 currently use a dating app or site, but the experience can often feel like an endless swiping session. To improve this user experience and help people find their person, website and app owners are implementing various forms of AI. In this post, we'll look at four ways AI is already being used to improve the dating lives of users and the user experience as a whole.
1. Better Matches
Of course the most obvious use of AI for dating apps is in improving matching people with potential dates. There are a couple of methods that this is happening. The dating app Hinge has been testing a feature called Most Compatible that uses machine learning to find better matches. According to Mashable, the feature "takes into account how people act on the app (such as who and what content you previously liked). It wants to serve as a virtual matchmaker and aims to find people similar to those you previously matched with on the platform."
According to VentureBeat, "today’s dating sites are only as good as the data they’re given." With that in mind, the best dating sites are using technology and data to weed out matches for users. Signals that people may miss but AI can catch include the sentiment in communication, response times, and length of profiles.
2. Moderation
Moderation is key for dating apps for a couple of reasons. Most obviously, you want to ensure people are having a positive experience. If they’re having to constantly swipe away from fake or inappropriate accounts, they’re eventually going to swipe over to another app.
Moderation is now also vital for the protection of the app company itself. In the US, FOSTA-SESTA is causing a crack down on any web platform that isn’t taking sex trafficking seriously. This is the law that cause Craigslist to completely shut down their personals section, so it’s one to take seriously. We wrote up a full rundown of the law and what it means for product teams, so check that out here.
Suffice to say, moderation is not really an option anymore, leaving brands with two options: manual moderation or automation with computer vision (CV) moderation. Only one method enables a dating app to scale and moderate more content at a much lower cost, and that's CV.
3. Security
Security is a key concern for any dating app user, and one bad experience could turn away people forever. It’s vital that apps take this seriously and invest in ways to make their platforms as secure as possible. Of course, vetting every person who wants to find a date would be impossible, so companies will have to rely on AI to resolve this issue.
One app called Hily is giving its users a “risk score” based on the user passing ID verification, any past complaints, the depth of their dialogue with other users, activeness in the app, etc. If a person has a high-risk score, the app can block other users from sending their personal information to that particular profile. The app also detects when a photo has been tampered with and blocks those too.
4. Help Users Provide Better Content
Lastly, help users help themselves. Selfie game totally off? One element of the profile seeming to cause a lot of rejection? AI can be used to better advise these users on what they can be doing to improve their dating outlook.
For example, take what online dating coach Greg Schwartz did by building the AI Online Dating Profile Upgrade app. Greg used Clarifai to build an app that recognizes common mistakes users make in their photos that they use on dating apps, such as using photos of things (a car for example) to be impressive or including your ex images.
What are some ways you think AI can impact and improve the dating world?
