Is Gen Z Finally Coming Back to the Apps? Yes, but Not for the AI

If you’ve spent two years pursuing customers and they finally turn up, only to say they don’t want what you built for them, what do you do? That’s the question I’d ask if I were on a product team at a dating app this week.

In a survey of 1,000 U.S. users of dating apps, Bloomberg Intelligence found that 34% of those 16 to 28 years old are single and dating, up from 23% a year ago. In one year, that’s an 11-point increase in this age group, the generation everyone in the industry has been fretting about (including some of us at DatingNews).

But here’s the twist: barely more than half of these Gen Z users would feel comfortable using AI to respond to their matches and continue a conversation. Among millennials, it’s 70%.

Gen Z is returning to the apps. But not necessarily to the AI.

Gen Z Showed Up. Now Who Gets the Credit?

Now let’s focus on the positive news, because there is plenty.

The survey, fielded Aug. 26 to Sept. 21 and split evenly between men and women, found that as Gen Z has gotten older, it has become more willing to pay for a subscription on dating apps. And that’s despite being more price-conscious than millennials, according to Natalie Lung at Bloomberg.

“As Gen Z ages, changing priorities toward dating and relationships could expand the future addressable market for dating apps,” wrote Nicole D’Souza of Bloomberg Intelligence.

Gen Z is coming back to the apps. It’s just not coming back for the AI.

Gen Z is coming back to the apps. It’s just not coming back for the AI. And that caught Wall Street’s attention. On Oct. 19, Evercore ISI upgraded Match Group to Outperform, citing third-party data showing a recovery for Tinder. And TD Cowen boosted its price target on Match to $52 from $45 for similar reasons.

Match will issue its Q3 results on Nov. 2, less than a week after this survey came out.

Match has its own version of the story, too. In May, CEO Spencer Rascoff said new registrations on Tinder had returned to year-over-year growth in March for the first time in nearly two years. “Our product changes are resonating with Gen Z and driving improvements in leading indicators,” he said at the time.

Here’s an outside piece of evidence supporting him. Kind of.

So, Do They Want the Robot Wingman or Not?

Bloomberg Intelligence asked people about their comfort with AI in their dating apps. A little more than half of Gen Z felt OK with AI writing replies and engaging in conversation. But 70% of millennials did, The Straits Times reported. And many respondents across the board said they could handle writing their own profile. So who, exactly, would want a tool that picks their photos and fills in their prompts?

“Dating apps may need to remain cautious in their use of AI, balancing tools that improve the user experience with the risk of turning away younger users who want more genuine connections,” D’Souza wrote.

But here’s the thing: Bloomberg Intelligence asked much the same question back in 2025. And it got much the same answer.

Yet the apps continued adding AI.

Every Survey Keeps Saying the Same Thing

I’ve kind of lost interest in surveys of dating apps and AI. Every month there seems to be another one. And they often disagree on details. But on this point they tend to agree.

In one of its own surveys, Match Group asked about 1,000 U.S. singles, ages 18 to 39, how they felt about AI in their love lives. Forty-seven percent viewed it negatively. Two in five said they wouldn’t date someone who used an AI companion app. But 64% said they could see a role for AI in their dating life, for example in helping them build a profile, keep a conversation going, and start one. Here’s how Match’s research team put it: “help with the hard parts, but hands off for the human parts.”

Gen Z uses AI more than millennials and trusts it less. Those two facts aren’t in conflict.

Gen Z uses AI more than millennials and trusts it less. Those two facts aren’t in conflict.

In the Kinsey Institute’s work for Match’s 15th annual Singles in America study, 67% of Gen Z singles had used AI in their dating lives, compared with 46% of millennials, per Arabian Post. And in a survey of 3,500 Gen Z and millennial daters, Hily found 64% of Gen Z wouldn’t date someone who regularly used AI, compared with 56% of millennials. Taken together, these findings suggest that more of Gen Z than millennials uses AI but trusts it less. Again, not necessarily a contradiction. And it makes sense, given that this generation recognizes when a message is written by ChatGPT.

Platforms, Listen Up

I’m no product manager, but it seems to me that the industry has been answering a question nobody asked. Gen Z isn’t struggling to write a bio. It’s struggling to find someone on the other end who wrote their own.

Already we’ve seen a cautionary tale. Bumble added some AI-driven features and moved away from its original women-message-first approach. But ultimately it agreed to sell to a private equity firm for less than 10% of its peak value. Match’s CFO, Steven Bailey, meanwhile, has said the company aims to become “an AI-native company” and is slowing hiring to fund it.

Not a bad bet. AI could, for instance, help find better matches for people. But I don’t think most people would be comfortable letting AI write their flirtatious reply to someone. Gen Z tends to have no problem with the first of those two ideas. But to them, the second sounds like catfishing. And increasingly, it’s the second that’s driving the high-profile launches of new features.

The Matchmakers Are Reading This, Too

A group that could well welcome this survey is one that doesn’t run on algorithms. For years now, premium matchmakers have argued that the human-curated introduction would help cut through swipe fatigue. And now they could sell it this way: more of you are single and dating than last year; you’d rather write your own messages than have one written for you; and we don’t use an algorithm.

Well, maybe that’s a bit in their own interest. A $20 subscription isn’t the same as a $5,000 matchmaking service. And most 24-year-olds aren’t buying either. But in essence, the same trend applies at Tinder as at a matchmaking firm in Dallas.

More daters are showing up. And more of them under 30 want to write their own messages. And companies that can add value without stealing the conversation will survive the next time this kind of survey comes out. After all, no one falls in love with a good prompt.