Hinge CEO Warns AI Is Replacing the Friction In Dating
Hinge CEO Jackie Jantos is raising concerns about the growing role of AI in personal relationships, arguing that artificial intelligence is absorbing the small, vulnerable moments that once built genuine intimacy. In a recent interview with Newsweek, Jantos recounted a London focus group where young people referred to ChatGPT as “my chatty” and used it for conversations they didn’t want to “burden” friends with. She sees this as a troubling development: “We’re supplementing the gift we might offer someone else of asking for their help with a piece of technology because we feel like it’s a burden. But the burden is the gift. That’s how intimacy is built.”
Jantos, who leads a dating app whose core promise is to be “designed to be deleted,” points to staggering disconnection data. Citing the U.S. Surgeon General, she notes Gen Z spends roughly 1,000 fewer hours per year in the physical company of others than previous generations – equivalent to more than two hours of daily human contact simply gone. The pandemic exacerbated this by hitting during the critical developmental window when young people learn to flirt, navigate rejection, and build relational resilience.
The Hinge CEO observes that AI offers low-stakes, consistent validation that feels like intimacy but lacks reciprocity and real risk. Northwestern professor Elizabeth Gerber notes that people often rate conversations with AI as more empathetic than those with humans when unaware they’re talking to a machine. However, AI companions cannot meet for coffee, share lived history, or provide genuine mutual choice – key elements that sustain real relationships.
Jantos’ leadership at Hinge emphasizes intentional friction. Onboarding is deliberately longer to filter for serious intent (20% of users drop off, which she views as a feature). AI is used to improve match recommendations and encourage specific self-disclosure, but when the company tested AI-generated “warm intros,” users rejected it—they wanted AI to help match them, not speak for them in the moment of connection.
Hinge also funds in-person social clubs and hobby groups through its One More Hour program, aiming to rebuild basic relational confidence lost during the pandemic. Jantos is careful not to overclaim Hinge as a loneliness cure, acknowledging it is a multi-faceted societal issue involving community, institutions, and economics. Yet her message to the tech industry is clear: “We really need to start centering humans a lot more than we do.”
