<p id="speakable-summary" class="wp-block-paragraph">Will dating app malaise finally kill off the swipe? For Bumble, at least, that seems to be the case.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In an <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/05/07/bumble-removes-swipe-hinge-tinder" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">interview</a> with Axios on Thursday, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd confirmed that Bumble will get rid of swiping, the defining feature of 2010s dating apps.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“We are going to be saying goodbye to the swipe and hello to something that I believe is revolutionary for the category,” Wolfe Herd said. </p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Bumble is planning to overhaul its app later this year, following several disappointing quarters in which the app consistently <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/05/bumbles-paying-users-are-slipping-as-it-bets-on-an-overhaul-later-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lost paying users</a>. In this year’s first quarter, Bumble’s paid users fell about 21% to 3.2 million, down from 4 million last year.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Redesigning the app is a pretty serious intervention, signaling to investors that the situation is dire. But like any good CEO, Wolfe Herd has done some verbal gymnastics to argue that Bumble is doing a very good job at losing money.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“This is a period of real transformation at Bumble over the past few quarters,” she <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/05/bumbles-paying-users-are-slipping-as-it-bets-on-an-overhaul-later-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> on this week’s quarterly earnings call. “We have executed a deliberate reset of our member base. We made a clear choice to prioritize quality over quantity, focusing on well-intentioned, engaged members. That decision reduced overall scale, but meaningfully improved the health of our ecosystem.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Based on Wolfe Herd’s past comments about Bumble’s new direction, the company is expected to lean into AI — Bumble is even working on an AI dating assistant called <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/12/bumble-introduces-an-ai-dating-assistant-bee/">Bee</a>, and Wolfe Herd has made many <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/28/bumble-ceo-whitney-wolfe-herd-shares-how-ai-will-supercharge-love-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">comments</a> over the years about how AI will be “a supercharger to love and relationships.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Of course, dating apps already use AI to decide what users should be shown to one another. But Gen Z is trending more negative toward in-your-face AI features, and Wolfe Herd has expressed interest in more extreme futures, like having <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/12/go-on-let-bots-date-other-bots/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">personal AI bots</a> that date other AI bots for you. So, it’s unclear if these “Black Mirror”-like overtures will effectively attract users in their 20s. Bumble’s overhaul isn’t expected to launch until the last quarter of this year, so users will still be swiping for now.</p>
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