Latest news with #WhitneyWolfeHerd
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First Post
6 days ago
- First Post
AI-generated wingman on dating apps? Why you should swipe left
Many online dating apps are incorporating generative AI into their products with the hope of creating 'more healthy and equitable relationships'. But this has raised certain red flags read more Feel like you need a little wingman action on dating apps? AI is here to help. Representational image/Pixabay Many dating app companies are enthusiastic about incorporating generative AI into their products. Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, wants gen-AI to 'help create more healthy and equitable relationships'. In her vision of the near future, people will have AI dating concierges who could 'date' other people's dating concierges for them, to find out which pairings were most compatible. Dating app Grindr is developing an AI wingman, which it hopes to be up and running by 2027. Match Group, owner of popular dating apps including Tinder, Hinge and OK Cupid, have also expressed keen interest in using gen-AI in their products, believing recent advances in AI technology 'have the power to be transformational, making it more seamless and engaging for users to participate in dating apps'. One of the ways they think gen-AI can do this is by enhancing 'the authenticity of human connections'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Use of gen-AI in online dating is not just some futuristic possibility, though. It's already here. Want to enhance your photos or present yourself in a different style? There are plenty of online tools for that. Similarly, if you want AI to help 'craft the perfect, attention-grabbing bio' for you, it can do that. AI can even help you with making conversation, by analysing your chat history and suggesting ways to reply. Extra help It isn't just dating app companies who are enthusiastic about AI use in dating apps either. A recent survey carried out by Cosmopolitan magazine and Bumble of 5,000 gen-Zers and millennials found that 69 per cent of respondents were excited about 'the ways AI could make dating easier and more efficient'. An even higher proportion (86 per cent) 'believe it could help solve pervasive dating fatigue'. A surprising 86 per cent of men and 77 per cent of the women surveyed would share their message history with AI to help guide their dating app conversations. It's not hard to see why AI is so appealing for dating app users and providers. Dating apps seem to be losing their novelty: many users are reportedly abandoning them due to so-called 'dating app fatigue' – feeling bored and burnt out with dating apps. Apps and users might be hopeful that gen-AI can make dating apps fun again, or if not fun, then at least that it will make them actually lead to dates. Some AI dating companions claim to get you 10 times more dates and better dates at that. Given that men tend to get fewer matches on dating apps than women, it's also not surprising that we're seeing more enthusiasm from men than women about the possibilities AI could bring. Talk of gen-AI in connection to online dating gives rise to many ethical concerns. We at the Ethical Dating Online Network, an international network of over 30 multi-disciplinary academics interested in how online dating could be more ethical, think that dating app companies need to convincingly answer these worries before rushing new products to market. Here are a few standout issues. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Gen-AI can make dating apps fun again, or if not fun, then at least that it will make them actually lead to dates. Representational image/Pixabay Pitfalls of AI dating Technology companies correctly identify some contemporary social issues, such as loneliness, anxiety at social interactions, and concerns about dating culture, as hindering people's dating lives. But turning to more technology to solve these issues puts us at risk of losing the skills we need to make close relationships work. The more we can reach for gen-AI to guide our interactions, the less we might be tempted to practise on our own, or to take accountability for what we communicate. After all, an AI 'wingman' is of little use when meeting in person. Also, AI tools risk entrenching much of dating culture that people find stressful. Norms around 'banter', attractiveness or flirting can make the search for intimacy seem like a competitive battleground. The way AI works – learning from existing conversations – means that it will reproduce these less desirable aspects. Instead of embracing those norms and ideals, and trying to equip everyone with the tools to seemingly meet impossibly high standards, dating app companies could do more to 'de-escalate' dating culture: make it calmer, more ordinary and help people be vulnerable. For example, they could rethink how they charge for their products, encourage a culture of honesty, and look at alternatives to the 'swiping' interfaces. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The possibility of misrepresentation is another concern. People have always massaged the truth when it comes to dating, and the internet has made this easier. But the more we are encouraged to use AI tools, and as they are embedded in dating apps, bad actors can more simply take advantage of the vulnerable. An AI-generated photo, or conversation, can lead to exchanges of bank details, grooming and sexual exploitation. Stopping short of fraud, however, is the looming intimate authenticity crisis. Online dating awash with AI generated material risks becoming a murky experience. A sincere user might struggle to identify like-minded matches on apps where use of AI is common. This interpretive burden is annoying for anyone, but it will exacerbate the existing frustrations women, more so than men, experience on dating apps as they navigate spaces full of with timewasting, abuse, harassment and unwanted sexualisation. Indeed, women might worry that AI will turbo-charge the ability of some men to prove a nuisance online. Bots, automation, conversation-generating tools, can help some men to lay claim to the attention of many women simultaneously. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD AI tools may seem like harmless fun, or a useful timesaver. Some people may even wholeheartedly accept that AI generated content is not 'authentic' and love it anyway. Without clear guardrails in place, however, and more effort by app companies to provide informed choices based on transparency about how their apps work, any potential benefits of AI will be obscured by the negative impact it has to intimacy online. Natasha McKeever, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds and Luke Brunning, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Business Wire
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Bumble Inc. to Announce Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results on August 6, 2025
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bumble Inc. (NASDAQ: BMBL) today announced that it will report financial results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2025, following the close of market on Wednesday, August 6, 2025. The Company will host a live webcast of its conference call to discuss the results at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on that day. The webcast of the call, the earnings release, and any related materials will be accessible on the Investors section of the Company's website at A webcast replay will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the live event. About Bumble Inc. Bumble Inc. is the parent company of Bumble, Badoo, Bumble For Friends, and Geneva. The Bumble platform brings people closer to love by enabling them to build healthy relationships. Founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, Bumble was one of the first dating apps built with women at the center and connects people across dating (Bumble Date), friendship (Bumble For Friends) and professional networking (Bumble Bizz). Badoo, which was founded in 2006, is one of the pioneers of web and mobile dating products. Bumble For Friends is a friendship app where people in all stages of life can meet people nearby and create meaningful platonic connections. Geneva is a group and community app for people to connect based on shared interests. For more information about Bumble, please visit and follow @Bumble on social platforms.
Mint
14-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Layoff riddle: Why are companies getting worse at letting employees go?
Gift this article Last week's jobs numbers in the US may have shown a drop in the number of pink slips hitting workers' desks in May, but don't be fooled: Layoffs are alive and well in 2025. In the first half of the year, employers in America let go of nearly 745,000 people, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's the second-highest number for the period since 2009—surpassed only by the first six months of 2020, when covid essentially shut down the global economy. Last week's jobs numbers in the US may have shown a drop in the number of pink slips hitting workers' desks in May, but don't be fooled: Layoffs are alive and well in 2025. In the first half of the year, employers in America let go of nearly 745,000 people, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's the second-highest number for the period since 2009—surpassed only by the first six months of 2020, when covid essentially shut down the global economy. The cuts are part of a broader trend. About 20% of S&P 500 companies have fewer employees today than they did a decade ago, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. Yet, even after having had years of practice slashing payrolls, most companies are still shockingly bad at it. In fact, it is the frequency and volume of workforce cuts that seem to be making them even worse. Normalizing the practice has ended up sucking the humanity right out of it. Also Read: Layoffs are painfully often a cover for corporate foibles Case in point: Dating app Bumble, which last week announced that it was laying off 240 employees—that's 30% of its workforce. Employees received the news via video call and responded with thumbs-down emojis. In response to their reaction, founder and chief executive officer Whitney Wolfe Herd told them, 'Y'all need to calm down." To make matters worse, she added, 'Everyone's going to have to be adults in dealing with this." I'm not sure what kind of response Wolfe Herd expected. A thumbs down is a much more work-appropriate alternative to the digit they could have thrown her way—especially considering what we know about the impact layoffs have on both those let go and those left behind. (My colleague Sarah Green Carmichael has written extensively on these detrimental effects.) Also last week, executives at Microsoft showed their own flavour of callousness when they announced that they would lay off 9,000 workers. That's on top of the 6,000 the company laid off in May. That Microsoft could not figure out the total number it would need to cut just two months earlier suggests both sloppiness and thoughtlessness. Layoff survivors will now live in a constant state of anxiety that additional downsizing could be right around the corner. Artificial intelligence (AI) has only made matters worse. It has become a justification for layoffs, while simultaneously letting companies outsource the work of empathy to a large language model. Also Read: Mass layoffs in Big Tech are an old-guard mistake An executive producer with Microsoft's Xbox, which was heavily impacted by the cuts, wrote a LinkedIn post offering some AI prompts that would 'help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss." He has since deleted the post. Microsoft pointed out the most recently announced cuts are less than 4% of the company's total workforce. That's still thousands of people and is the kind of justification that Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher sees as an increase in 'moral disengagement" on the part of CEOs. She told me that big bosses have become so far removed from the average employee that they 'don't seem to understand what it means for someone to lose their job." Layoffs are increasingly 'stripped of any acknowledgement that harm is being done," she added. It's the layoff edition of a broader phenomenon I have been following among America's CEOs: The end of the era of corporate do-gooderism and make-the-world-a-better-place discourse. Empathetic leadership, all the rage during the covid era, is not part of the conversation anymore. And the lack of respect that employees have subsequently felt from their employers is accelerating a crisis of trust in big business. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come to embody this leadership transformation. In 2022, when the company cut 11,000 employees, Zuckerberg—as was the practice of many business leaders at the time—took accountability for some poor decision making. 'I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted," he had said back then. Fast forward to January 2025, when Zuckerberg said he was cutting about 5% of staff by moving out 'low-performers." The blame had been shifted. There was no acknowledgement of what such a public statement might mean for the future job hunts of those impacted, and certainly no 'I'm sorry." As Zuckerberg has said, he is done apologizing. Layoffs are a reality of corporate America today, and they're not going away. But that doesn't mean they need to be cruel. As Sucher told me, companies preparing for a cut should have a mantra: Do it for the right reason, in the right way. ©Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering corporate America. Topics You May Be Interested In
CNA
12-07-2025
- Business
- CNA
Commentary: Companies are getting worse at laying people off
NEW YORK: The latest jobs numbers in the United States may have shown a drop in the number of pink slips hitting workers' desks in May, but don't be fooled: Layoffs are alive and well in 2025. In the first half of the year, US employers let go of nearly 745,000 people, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's the second-highest number for the period since 2009 – surpassed only by the first six months of 2020, when COVID-19 essentially shut down the global economy. The cuts are part of a broader trend. About 20 per cent of S&P 500 companies have fewer employees today than they did a decade ago, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. Yet even after years of practice slashing payrolls, most companies are still shockingly bad at it. SUCKING THE HUMANITY OUT OF LAYOFFS In fact, it's the frequency and volume of workforce cuts that seem to be making them even worse; normalising the practice has ended up sucking the humanity right out of it. Case in point: dating app Bumble, which last week announced that it was laying off 240 employees, 30 per cent of its workforce. When employees, who received the news via video call, responded with thumbs-down emojis, founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told them: 'Y'all need to calm down,' adding, 'Everyone's going to have to be adults in dealing with this.' I'm not sure what kind of response Herd expected. A thumbs-down is a much more work appropriate alternative to the digit they could have thrown her way – especially considering what we know about the impact layoffs have on both those let go and those left behind. (My colleague Sarah Green Carmichael has written extensively on these detrimental effects.) Also last week, executives at Microsoft showed their own flavour of callousness when they announced they would lay off 9,000 workers. That's on top of the 6,000 the company laid off in May. That Microsoft couldn't figure out the total number it would need to cut two months earlier suggests both sloppiness and thoughtlessness. Layoff survivors will now live in a constant state of anxiety that additional downsizing could be right around the corner. A SMALL PERCENTAGE CAN STILL BE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AI has only made matters worse. It's become a justification for layoffs, while also letting companies outsource the work of empathy to an LLM. An executive producer with Microsoft's Xbox, which was heavily impacted by the cuts, wrote a LinkedIn post offering some AI prompts that would 'help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss'. He's since deleted the post. Microsoft pointed out the most recently announced cuts are less than 4 per cent of the company's total workforce. That's still thousands of people, and is the kind of justification Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher sees as an increase in 'moral disengagement' on the part of CEOs. She told me the big bosses have become so far removed from the average employee that they 'don't seem to understand what it means for someone to lose their job'. Layoffs are increasingly 'stripped of any acknowledgement that harm is being done,' she added. A CRISIS OF TRUST It's the layoff edition of a broader phenomenon I've been following among America's CEOs: the end of the era of corporate do-gooderism and make-the-world-a-better-place discourse. Empathetic leadership, all the rage during the COVID-19 era, isn't part of the conversation anymore. And the lack of respect that employees have subsequently felt from their employers is accelerating a crisis of trust in big business. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come to embody this leadership transformation. In 2022, when the company cut 11,000 employees, Zuckerberg – as was the practice of many CEOs at the time – took accountability for poor decision making. 'I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted,' he said. Fast forward to January 2025, when Zuckerberg said he was cutting about 5 per cent of staff by moving out 'low performers'. The blame had been shifted. There was no acknowledgement of what such a public statement might mean for the future job hunts of those impacted, and certainly no 'I'm sorry'. As Zuckerberg has said, he is done apologising.
Business Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Companies are getting worse at laying people off
Last week's jobs numbers may have shown a drop in the number of pink slips hitting workers' desks in May, but don't be fooled: Layoffs are alive and well in 2025. In the first half of the year, US employers let go of nearly 745,000 people, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's the second-highest number for the period since 2009 – surpassed only by the first six months of 2020, when Covid essentially shut down the global economy. The cuts are part of a broader trend. About 20 per cent of S&P 500 companies have fewer employees today than they did a decade ago, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. Yet even after years of practice slashing payrolls, most companies are still shockingly bad at it. In fact, it's the frequency and volume of workforce cuts that seem to be making them even worse; normalising the practice has ended up sucking the humanity right out of it. Case in point: dating app Bumble, which last week announced that it was laying off 240 employees, 30 per cent of its workforce. When employees, who received the news via video call, responded with thumbs-down emojis, founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told them, 'Y'all need to calm down,' adding, 'Everyone's going to have to be adults in dealing with this.' I'm not sure what kind of response Wolfe Herd expected. A thumbs down is a much more work-appropriate alternative to the digit they could have thrown her way – especially considering what we know about the impact layoffs have on both those let go and those left behind. (My colleague Sarah Green Carmichael has written extensively on these detrimental effects.) BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Also last week, executives at Microsoft showed their own flavour of callousness when they announced they would lay off 9,000 workers. That's on top of the 6,000 the company laid off in May. That Microsoft couldn't figure out the total number it would need to cut two months earlier suggests both sloppiness and thoughtlessness. Layoff survivors will now live in a constant state of anxiety that additional downsizing could be right around the corner. Artificial intelligence (AI) has only made matters worse. It's become a justification for layoffs, while also letting companies outsource the work of empathy to a large language model. An executive producer with Microsoft's Xbox, which was heavily impacted by the cuts, wrote a LinkedIn post offering some AI prompts that would 'help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.' He's since deleted the post. Microsoft pointed out the most recently announced cuts are less than 4 per cent of the company's total workforce. That's still thousands of people, and is the kind of justification Harvard Business School professor Sandra Sucher sees as an increase in 'moral disengagement' on the part of CEOs. She told me the big bosses have become so far removed from the average employee that they 'don't seem to understand what it means for someone to lose their job'. Layoffs are increasingly 'stripped of any acknowledgement that harm is being done,' she added. It's the layoff edition of a broader phenomenon I've been following among America's CEOs: The end of the era of corporate do-gooderism and make-the-world-a-better-place discourse. Empathetic leadership, all the rage during the Covid era, isn't part of the conversation anymore. And the lack of respect that employees have subsequently felt from their employers is accelerating a crisis of trust in big business. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come to embody this leadership transformation. In 2022, when the company cut 11,000 employees, Zuckerberg – as was the practice of many CEOs at the time – took accountability for poor decision making. 'I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted,' he said. Fast forward to January 2025, when Zuckerberg said he was cutting about 5 per cent of staff by moving out 'low-performers'. The blame had been shifted. There was no acknowledgement of what such a public statement might mean for the future job hunts of those impacted, and certainly no 'I'm sorry'. As Zuckerberg has said, he is done apologising. Layoffs are a reality of corporate America, and they're not going away. But that doesn't mean they need to be cruel. As Sucher told me, companies preparing for a cut should have a mantra: For the right reason, in the right way. BLOOMBERG
