Bumble Is Removing the Swipe Feature—and Will Use AI in New Launch
Bumble is swiping left for the last time.
The dating app will soon be getting rid of its swiping feature altogether, founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd announced.
“We are going to be saying goodbye to the swipe,” she told Axios in an interview published May 7, “and hello to something that I believe is revolutionary for the category.”
In addition to removing the ability to swipe right or left to approve to deny a potential match, Bumble will begin rolling out a new, AI-powered platform in the latter part of the year.
“Our deliberate steps to reset the Bumble member base have meaningfully improved the health of our ecosystem,” Wolfe Herd said in a May 13 statement to E! News. "We’re now focused on activating this higher-quality network by launching a fully reimagined Bumble experience on our rebuilt, AI-enabled platform later this year.”
“This next chapter will deliver a more intuitive, personalized way to connect,” she shared, “and help members move more confidently and quickly to in-person dates."
Wolfe Herd—who co-founded Tinder before launching Bumble in 2014—did not confirm when the swipe feature would be fully phased out, but said the new AI experience will roll out to select markets later this year.
Another change that’s buzzing to the surface? Women no longer have to be the ones to send the first message on the platform—a concept she first tried out by launching Opening Moves prompts in 2024.
"We will not force one gender over another to do something first," Wolfe Herd explained to Axios, adding that the app would still preserve "the essence of what was always meant to be women making the first move."
In fact, the idea of women being the ones to reach out first was one of the reasons she initially launched Bumble.
“When I founded Bumble, it was because I saw a problem I wanted to help solve,” Wolfe Herd explained in a letter on Bumble’s website. “It was 2014, but so many of the smart, wonderful women in my life were still waiting around for men to ask them out, to take their numbers, or to start up a conversation on a dating app.”
“For all the advances women had been making in workplaces and corridors of power, the gender dynamics of dating and romance still seemed so outdated,” she continued. “I thought, what if I could flip that on its head? What if women made the first move, and sent the first message?”
And from that thought, Bumble was born.
Wolfe Herd added, “I want nothing more than for your connections to be both meaningful and healthy.”
eonline
