--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Hi, thanks for having me.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Today, we're talking about how AI is changing the way we date. Pietro Pecora is 27, single, and lives in San Francisco. He works in tech and has been using Grindr since he was 18.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah, I've been on Grindr for a long time.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So, how do introductions work on a first date? Do you have any rituals or do you just wing it?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I'm a hugger, so I start with a hug. Some people go for the handshake, but I'm like, no, we've already been chatting. Let's not make this weird, right?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: That makes sense. So, let's talk about your dating life. What's it like right now?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I'm casually dating. I got out of a relationship almost a year ago, and I think that forced me to reflect on what I want in dating and what I'm looking for.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Do you have a type? My friend said this and I was like, ooh, that sticks. My type is tall, dark, and handsome. Mm. Oh. I like a bad boy.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah, okay. Who is your fantasy person? What do they look like?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: It's hard because I'm not really a celebrity. And so, like, Pedro Pascal. Pedro Pascal, the heartthrob who starred in The Mandalorian, The Last of Us, and also Corona beer commercials.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: [laughs]
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: In his hunt for tall, dark, and handsome, Pietro mainly uses the LGBTQ dating app, Grindr. And about six months ago, Pietro agreed to beta test a new feature on the app. It's called AI Wingman.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah, I was AI curious.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: All right. You have to be AI curious in this economy and in this world. Welcome to The Journal.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Coming up on the show, the new race on the AI frontier. Love. CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships. Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much.
--:-- Announcer: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your fridge stops working, you don't sit around waiting for all your food to spoil. You find a solution. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find great talent fast.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Pietro has been using Grindr since he was 18. What does your about me say on Grindr? Right now?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah, I think I just changed it, actually. So it says up in Tahoe for the month of February, need ski buds. And then I say start with a face pic. Big desserts guy. Prefer fit guys and connection, but inquire within.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Okay, so uh this is so like... I like I feel like you carving into my soul right now because I don't even show my friends this. And I just admitted this on a podcast.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Okay, okay. Let's breathe. Yeah. Sorry.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Now, back in the dating game, Pietro is remembering the things he doesn't like about the apps. What is the worst part of online dating?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Filtering. It's a time crunch.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: On Grindr, how it works is that you are given a grid and you can see everybody who's around you. And that has really a lot of positives, but a lot of cons as well, because everyone can reach out to you, talk to you if you want.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Even though millions of people use dating apps to find romance and hookups, there's been some backlash. Like Pietro, some people don't like the time commitment. They don't like the slew of getting to know you messages that don't go anywhere.
--:-- Belle Lin: Dating apps for quite some time since the sort of end of the pandemic have really struggled to retain the big numbers that they posted when people were stuck at homes and looking for connections.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And being online and swiping was really one of the best ways to do that. But since then, it's been challenging to keep people glued to their phones when they're really seeking in-person interactions.
--:-- Belle Lin: Dating apps like Hinge, Tinder, and Bumble have been struggling with declining demand and user engagement.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Many younger users have snubbed the apps, and companies want to make online dating better, more joyful, and faster. Enter AI.
--:-- Belle Lin: Here's the CEO of Tinder at a conference. And I believe that as much as Tinder benefited from the smartphone bursting onto the scene in the 2010s, we can now leverage AI to transform the user experience.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And the founder of Bumble. There is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierge. No, no, truly.
--:-- Belle Lin: And then you don't have to talk to 600 people. But the app that's done the most with AI? You guessed it. It's Grindr.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: They've really sort of come out ahead of the pack in talking about what AI can do. And they're talking about AI agents or bots.
--:-- Belle Lin: And what bots can do are essentially perform tasks or services on our behalf. So whether that's going out and finding a great match for us, or simply saying, you should meet at this coffee shop because you and the guy that you matched with both live in this neighborhood and it's convenient for the two of you.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So that's the kind of future where AI is basically doing all the hard stuff that you don't want to do.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I am fascinated by the fact that they seem to be veering into a very sort of sci-fi direction in which one day, maybe not in the so far future, the apps are integrated with AI in every which way.
--:-- Belle Lin: If a world where bots match lovers together sounds straight out of sci-fi, that's because it is. Take this episode of Black Mirror called Hang the DJ.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: In it, an algorithm matches different people in relationships until they find their lifelong partner.
--:-- Belle Lin: It's my first time on the, you know, with the system.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Me too. A device pairs couples for fixed periods of time.
--:-- Belle Lin: In this scene, the AI even decides their meal.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Do you know how we order? I think we use these.
--:-- Belle Lin: Oh, menu choice already established.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: But this sci-fi-type dating situation is not what the apps are offering right now, at least according to Pietro.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: He's been testing Grindr's AI wingman for about six months. He says the wingman is like a chatbot.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: It can give you dating tips, advice for how to navigate Grindr, and techniques for flirting.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: And how did you use it?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I was mostly interested in dating tips and advice because for me I want to get better at talking to people in person mostly I think I have a pretty good grinder game.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: And so I was very curious when they said dating tips and advice to see what they would recommend.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So to help his real-life game, Pietro asked AI Wingman to write him some pickup lines.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Be bold. I lost my number. Can I have yours?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Eh. Get playful. If you were a fruit, you'd be a fine apple.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Go for humor. Are you a parking ticket? Because you got fine written all over you.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Whoa. Did you use any of these IRL?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I did not.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Can you ask your AI wingman for an opening line if you bump into Pedro Pascal?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Okay. The opening line, if I bump into Pedro Pascal.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: They gave me something related to the Mandalorian.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Excuse me, are you lost? Because I'm pretty sure heaven is missing an angel or maybe it's just the Mandalorian without his helmet.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Hey, it's pretty good.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Depends on how cringe you would find that.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Or you could go with, I know you're not really my daddy, but wannabe.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Oh, God.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Do you think you'll use that one?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I don't know if I'd go with either of those.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: But what Pietro really wants is what he talked about earlier. Help with filtering different profiles.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I'm pretty picky. And I know some people are like, let's just grab a drink and see if the vibe is there. But I think there needs to be a good foundation.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Texting and chatting before the date is like the predate, right?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: What do you wish this AI tool could do for you in future versions?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I think if I were able to spend less time filtering, then it can give me recommendations on people that they think I'd be a good match with. That would be really cool.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: To figure out if Grindr's AI wingman is going to give Pietro the help he needs, we called up Grindr's CEO.
--:-- George Erison: Hi, I'm George Erison, and I'm the CEO of Grindr.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: George has been the CEO of Grindr since 2022. And he is also AI curious.
--:-- George Erison: I believe that AI is a massive platform shift in technology.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And, you know, I'm a product guy, and I really care about building products that users love and care for.
--:-- George Erison: So that's number one. And I think it can do really awesome things for users. Some things that we can't even conceive today right now as being things that they would want, right?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Like, for example, hey, here are all my messages that people have talked to. Help me figure out which of these people might be inclined to be in a long-term relationship and which ones might not be.
--:-- George Erison: And then, you know, help me sort that based on, obviously, with their consent, based on their behavior patterns, based on things that they say in their chats to people, etc., who is into relationships and who is not.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: How do you see this AI wingman changing the way people date?
--:-- George Erison: Yeah, so the feature that people want the most is, hey, I really like this profile, recommend a bunch of other profiles to me that are similar to this.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: We don't do that yet, but that is definitely the kind of killer feature that a lot of people want.
--:-- George Erison: Find me the one? Or find me the ones, right? Like not necessarily the one, but like really highly qualified, highly selected 10 people or 20 people.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So Grindr put us in touch with one of your beta testers, a guy named Pietro.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah, I'm Pietro.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And he said the worst part of online dating and using Grindr is what he described as filtering.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: A hundred percent. That it's a time crunch.
--:-- George Erison: See, I love that because what I've been just talking to you about is making filtering a lot easier through AI.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And a user tells you that's the most annoying part, which is what we want to solve.
--:-- George Erison: So you think wingman will be able to help Pietro spend less time filtering?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: 100%.
--:-- George Erison: Can you have your wingman out there chatting for you with other profile people who then their wingman is chatting back?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So I've certainly thought about that, and I think that will be happening.
--:-- George Erison: My God, AI is finding your partner for you.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I think it's almost certainly going to happen. I mean, forget about Grindr. Like if Grindr doesn't do it, somebody else will.
--:-- George Erison: How big of a priority is this for Grindr?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And is it going to totally transform what the online dating world will look like?
--:-- George Erison: My hunch is that AI will totally transform what online dating world looks like, but it's going to also transform what every other engagement that people have online or offline, frankly, is like.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: That's inevitable. And so that's going to happen. When it's going to happen, I don't yet know. And how quickly, but it's going, I mean, it's definitely going to happen at some point.
--:-- George Erison: Is it two years, three years, four years, five years? I don't know.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: So how important of a priority is it?
--:-- George Erison: I think it's huge because we can create a way better user experience with AI.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I asked our colleague, Belvin, if she thinks there's going to be an appetite to pay for AI to play matchmaker.
--:-- Belvin: I think there are a subset of users who are really itching for something better out of their dating apps.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And so there is this sort of hankering, I think, among a subset of users who haven't given up on the apps for AI to bring in something fresh and interesting.
--:-- Belvin: Do you think that AI is the answer for dating apps? Or is it just an industry grasping for an answer to a business problem?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: I think it's a little bit of both.
--:-- Belvin: From the investor perspective for the dating apps, they're really hoping to see an increase in paid subscriber numbers and user growth and revenue.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And AI sort of promises that because there's really not that much else that the apps can sort of turn to at this point.
--:-- Belvin: It's really technological innovation that they hope can drive the numbers that their investors are hoping to see.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: But at the same time, the way that technology is moving, it was only a matter of time until it came for dating apps.
--:-- Belvin: Do you think that AI is going to be the future of dating apps?
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Yeah, that's an open question.
--:-- Belvin: I'm pretty skeptical of the fact that AI is propped up as this sort of, as long as we roll out these certain features and introduce them to our user base, then people will use them.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: That's a sort of story we've seen before, and it doesn't always end well.
--:-- Belvin: For AI to take on higher order work, there are big questions over trust and reliability.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Do we actually want AI to do this?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I don't know, hopefully sometime soon depends on it's good.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Do you have plans for Valentine's Day?
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I'm going to be having a wholesome Valentine's Day like friend Valentine's Day up here in Tahoe.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Make some dinner.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: Yeah. Yeah.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: The best kind of love. The friend love. Yeah.
--:-- Pietro Pecora: I think you want to be friends first. Right.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: And then see if there's something more.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: That's all for today. Thursday, February 13th.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: We're out every weekday afternoon.
--:-- Kate Leinbaugh: Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.
