Key Takeaways

Ditto is offering the “Black Mirror” era of online romance, or worse, the ChatGPT era of romance. As a consumer, I wasn’t so sure when I first heard about it. But as a dating industry expert, it couldn’t be the worst idea, right?

For folks working in the dating realm, like yourself, you could be staring at your dating app metrics and thinking, “People are really tired of swiping.” That’s what Ditto — the buzzy, new AI-powered app developed by a few iconic UC Berkeley grads — is trying to go up against. 

“It’s a pain point for both of us [the founders of Ditto] and many others that we know around us,” Ditto co-founder Eric Liu told SFGATE recently, “There’s just so much endless swiping and small talk in traditional dating apps, and we just wanted to create something cooler.”

Maybe the app has already caught your eye for all the right reasons. Or maybe, for all the wrong ones, too.

Is Full Automation the Fix for Swiping Fatigue?

Much like Netflix’s “Black Mirror” episode from Season 4, Ditto claims to use AI to run folks through 1,000 possible dates, all with different matches in mind. It can even find a time to schedule, pick a safe location, and if users are really in need of some extra help, it can help draft conversation starters.

It can even have access to your Google Calendar to truly schedule everything for you! I mean, I find it all a little creepy, but then again, at least it’s not the plot of “Her,” the 2013 sci-fi film where the main character falls in love with an AI bot with Scarlett Johansson’s sultry voice.

In other words, Ditto’s users can basically outsource the entire dating process to a machine, if they so choose. No, it’s not another Hinge clone with a new aesthetic. It’s a completely different form of dating with no swiping, no messaging even. Which, in theory, may sound nice for dating industry experts and those who are dating, too.

But before you jump into going full automation, let’s take a beat. Sure, what Ditto is doing may seem bold, interesting, and even get to the bottom of some very real user pain points. But is it the future of dating? Should dating industry experts, like yourself, care? Or is it just a trend that will quickly fade?

According to a recent Pew survey, over half of dating app users feel burned out from the current dating process. That’s not a stat to ignore. The swiping fatigue, the ghosting, the weeks of texting that go nowhere are, without a doubt, making people tired. Ditto’s solution? Skip everything and go straight to the date. 

If your gut reaction is “that’s wild,” you’re not wrong. But your second reaction might be more along the lines of, “Could we use this to fight the competition?” 

What Ditto Gets Right — and What It Might Miss

The answer, in my humble opinion, is maybe? Let’s remember: Dating isn’t just about outcomes. As a person who writes about sex and relationships for a living — and documents my very real, very lived dating experience as a polyamorous person — it’s truly about the experiences I have from being in the dating game.

The thrill of the first match. The flirty messages back and forth. The spark that may or may not come. The back-and-forth over dinner plans. Users might complain that they are tired of swiping, but I don’t think it means that all daters no longer want to be part of the process at all.

What Ditto gets right, though, is recognizing that the current model isn’t working for everyone. Some people don’t want to do everything in the dating app game, but they might be OK with portions of it, like the scheduling aspect. It’s pretty heavy to think that all daters, everywhere, are ready to hand over their entire love lives to a machine.

The most effective match isn’t always the most obvious one on paper. That spark might come from a profile that would’ve been rejected by an algorithm. That chemistry might start in a chaotic DM thread, not a perfectly scheduled 7 p.m. dinner.

AI can certainly support connection, but it can’t replace the feeling of building one. But maybe that’s the lover girl in me. But as a dating industry pro, take into account that for users who are dating intentionally on apps, who have nuanced identities, desires, or who want to feel some control over who ends up across the table from them, it just might not work.

How the Dating Industry Can Use AI Without Losing the Spark

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t all be paying attention to what Ditto is doing, though.

No, I don’t think it’s likely to dethrone Bumble or Hinge, but it does throw down a challenge for us all to keep in mind: “How can we, in the industry, solve dating burnout and fatigue for real?” Maybe, instead of going full robot, we could implement AI to help us solve perhaps the biggest challenge of all for dating app users.

Think: Adopting the calendar coordination tools to make scheduling dates easier. Or, rather than pushing prompts for users to answer, use AI to analyze mutual interests and deliver tailored conversation starters or insights. Small AI changes that don’t feel like they’re taking control of the dating experience for good.

The key, in my opinion, is not to just follow in line with Ditto’s “Black Mirror” vibe, but instead, use our versions of AI to give users tools, not orders. 

I’d say that while Ditto may appeal to a very specific type of overwhelmed tech-savvy dater, the average user may still want to feel something in the journey. And most of the major apps, like Hinge or Bumble, should probably lean into what makes dating feel less optimized and more, well, real. 

Even more so if your audience includes LGBTQ+ users, polyamorous folks, or people who don’t fit into neat algorithmic boxes, FYI: There’s no AI on the market today (yet)  that can fully parse queer subtext or kink nuance. Will we all be using or working for Ditto-style apps in five years? Probably not.

The dating apps that will last, and continue to grow, are the ones that listen to their users and make features that are functional and practical, without going full sci-fi for every single part of it.