Dating apps' AI gamble

Dating apps' bet on AI could drive away the young users they're counting on. In a Bloomberg Intelligence survey of 1,000 U.S. dating app users, just over half of Gen Z respondents said they're comfortable letting AI write their messages and keep conversations going. Among millennials, a larger 70% share said they were.

As Gen Z gets more serious about dating, young users are becoming a bigger prize for the apps. A third of Gen Z users said they're single and dating, up from 23% last year, and they're more willing to pay for subscriptions.

What young daters want is a real person on the other end. Apps that lean too hard on AI risk "turning away younger users who want more genuine connections," wrote Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nicole D'Souza. Many users also said they don't need help building a profile. AI that picks photos and writes prompts may not be worth much to them.

Match Group, which owns Tinder, has reportedly tried to win back young users by bringing them together in person at events. Yet its CFO, Steven Bailey, has said the company wants to become "an AI-native company." He said Match is hiring fewer people to free up money for AI.

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The Fed's rate-setters are split over how hard to fight inflation. The central bank held its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4% on Wednesday, but two of its 12 voting officials wanted a quarter-point increase.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissented. It's reportedly the first time Cook has broken with the committee since she joined the Fed in 2022. President Donald Trump has tried to remove her from the board over allegations tied to her home loan applications.

The Fed said "inflation remains elevated" and upgraded its view of the economy, which it said is "expanding at a strong pace." Inflation has picked up since the Fed raised rates in September for the first time since July 2023. Consumer prices rose 3.7% in September from a year earlier, up from 3.4% in August.

The decision came less than a week before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress. Trump has repeatedly pushed for lower rates. Narayana Kocherlakota, a former Minneapolis Fed president, said holding off now signals that officials are influenced by politics. He also said a one-meeting delay isn't an "enormous blow to Fed independence."

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