AI Chatbots Hit The Dating Scene, Becoming The Lovelorn’s Modern-day Cyrano
Marie Lansley recently started a new job in a new city while looking for a new partner. The newly minted San Franciscan said he’s “tried everything” in his dating pursuits, including getting some help from artificial intelligence.
AI chatbots have become de facto dating coaches and relationship experts for her and many others.
Lansley, 36, turns to AI chatbots for help starting conversations, something she said she has a hard time with on dating apps, although she personally feels comfortable doing so. Although optimistic about the possibilities, he acknowledges the incompatibility between the art of romanticism and the precision of technology.
“I’m open to AI finding me the love of my life, but I’m not fully convinced it could happen,” Lansley said. “AI is great at making dating more efficient. But chemistry will always be analog.”
AI adopters are using the technology in a variety of ways to find romance. Some patronize AI matchmaking services. Others are using AI tools to help create dating profiles. But the most common way is to use chatbots to draft messages for potential matches and interpret the messages they receive.
Lansley is bouncing between OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. Others are turning to Elon Musk and X’s Grok, Google’s Gemini and other chatbots. Dating apps and AI companies are turning to this. ChatGPT and Gemini published content on TikTok showcasing their chatbot’s personalized, personality-based relationship advice.
“Claude is the new Cyrano,” said dating coach Carey Gaynes, referencing the 19th-century French play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” in which the title character is the mastermind behind another man’s romantic promises.
“You’re using a voice that doesn’t belong to you.”
Gaynes said he’s heard from both his customer base and followers on the YouTube channel Coffee with Carey that daters of all ages are turning to technology. She sees how useful flirting can be, but like others, she worries about being overconfident.
Like the platitude used to describe many modern dating arrangements, it’s complicated when it comes to people’s feelings about the role of AI in romance. There is a range of excitement, resistance and skepticism.
AI writes icebreakers, offers advice and plays matchmaker
Lansley said he was surprised to see how chatbots could appear to exhibit emotional intelligence.
When she was doing an onboarding interview with an 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 appeared to be trying to build empathy.
This doesn’t necessarily lead to better results; His first match wasn’t a perfect fit.
Mason Naung, a 25-year-old student living in Los Angeles, said he doesn’t use chatbots for message ideas, but he can see the benefit in terms of “icebreakers” during the first back-and-forth with someone.
“I’ve been playing on Hinge on and off for a year or two, and sometimes I have a hard time thinking about what the keynote with this girl should be like, right?” he said. But if the messages written by the AI go beyond these initial exchanges, it will be a “little red flag” in his mind.
While chatbots can help start conversations, they can also help end things. Dani Cohen, a 27-year-old business owner who lives in San Diego, said she would prefer to be sent an AI-written farewell message by someone she’s been on a few dates with, rather than being “ghosted” or cut off without a word.
“Frankly, in a perfect world, everyone knows what they want to say and how to say it in the kindest way possible, and they do it. That’s not the world we live in,” he said. “Anything that allows people to communicate and get their thoughts across in a polite and effective way is great.”
Skepticism continues about ‘outsourcing’ love life
Many people who spoke with The Associated Press, including those turning to AI for dating help, expressed reservations about using the technology to help with deeply personal aspects of their lives. Many adopters said they have a line they won’t cross when using AI for dating isn’t appropriate.
Others couldn’t imagine turning to a chatbot for help with their love lives.
Clara Sullivan, a 22-year-old student living in Los Angeles, said that if her potential partner knew he was sending her messages written by artificial intelligence, she would not respond to him.
“I think it’s really scary how addicted people are to this,” Sullivan said. “It completely stripped people of their ability to be creative and think for themselves.”
Many feel the same way. A 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 53% of US adults say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively. Half of those surveyed said they thought AI would worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships.
Still, it was probably inevitable that AI would marry the highly lucrative dating industry. Many dating apps have been integrating AI into their platforms for years.
Tinder has an artificial intelligence-powered feature called Chemistry, which recommends profiles that match the user’s interests. Hinge has AI-powered conversation starters and feedback tools to help build users’ profiles and make interactions seamless.
The founder of the Bumble app recently said that the platform will soon abandon its well-known swipe feature, turning instead to AI-driven matching. Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd wrote in a statement after facing some backlash against the decision that what they had built was “based on a simple belief: technology should make love and connection feel more human, not less.”
Some think AI’s role in romance is being traded off
Mohammed Nizami, 23, said he turned to artificial intelligence for some things in his life, but not for dating pursuits.
“We all crave genuine connection to some degree. You definitely want that with your partner,” she said. “If there’s a filter or barrier between you and your partner or potential partner, I don’t think that’s a very good way to start a relationship.”
Chatbots may not even provide the best guidance, Nizami said. He said the sycophantic nature of many chatbots may be “good for your own mental comfort” but won’t necessarily lead to the soundest advice.
Despite hesitations, artificial intelligence is likely to play an increasing role in modern dating life.
“That’s a sad commentary on the state of the world. Dating is supposed to be one of those things that can’t be replaced, right?” said Jake Clay, a 30-year-old content creator based in New York. “It’s a little sad to think that something so important to your life journey has been handed over to an AI that can’t understand the emotions around it.”
Clay said he gets fewer messages from friends asking him to decrypt messages from potential partners now that they’ve turned to chatbots.
Clay sarcastically said he appreciated the AI ”lifting the load” here, but he also called the situation a “Catch-22” because it’s “a circumvention of some of the normal processes in life that I think should be a little more sacred.”
