Season 7, Post 24: Summer lovin’
Sun’s out, fun’s out. Many are hitting the beach or the park and looking hopefully at their best as we approach peak summer. This should be a great time for dating, if you’re single. But finding a partner has never been easy and dating apps have come in for much criticism. It is therefore interesting to read Match’s 14th annual Singles in America study (conducted in conjunction with the Kinsey Institute) to understand the state of the market. In our view, dating is a clear use for where AI can improve experiences.
Where to start, when 41% believe that romantic media have set unrealistic expectations for love and the average dater spends over $300 per month in the quest of partnership? Time for an emotional reset. Based on the study’s findings, successful daters should exhibit kindness and empathy, be physically attractive and have shared values. By contrast, deal-breakers comprise dishonesty – by a large margin – emotional unavailability, lack of attraction and non-monogamy.
Assume you tick these boxes, then you may be in luck, since almost 50% of singles say that they are ready for a long-term relationship. A markedly greater percentage say that when they are dating, they prioritise finding love and seeking a romantic partner over just casually looking (by a factor of almost two-to-one). Over 60% of both Gen-Z and Millennial cohorts say they are “interested” in marriage.
Dating apps are an enabler. As we have discussed previously, platform businesses (in any walk of life – think Uber, Airbnb elsewhere) seek to reduce friction by connecting supply and demand via a trusted intermediary. Add in AI and you have a potentially perfect relationship. Consider that Match’s platform generates 5bn new data points on a daily basis. Around 500m matches occur each month. Artificial intelligence can be used not only as a tool to identify and remove bad actors (increasing trust in the platform from others), but also to improve profiles, increase matching probabilities and even suggest suitable chat-up lines. Almost half of Gen-Z users are working with AI when they date. Best guess, this number only grows.
2 July 2025
The above does not constitute investment advice and is the sole opinion of the author at the time of publication. Heptagon Capital is an investor in Match Group. The author of this piece has no personal direct investment in the business. Past performance is no guide to future performance and the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise.
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Alex Gunz, Fund Manager
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