Tech
Tinder tries to lure people back to online dating with IRL events, virtual speed dating
Tinder held its inaugural product keynote on Thursday, unveiling an ambitious slate of updates designed to reinvigorate its product, bolster safety, and harness AI. This comes on the heels of Match Group’s $50 million investment in product development, announced last August, as the parent company looks to re-engage its user base and win over younger Gen Z daters.
Among the updates are innovative features for discovering in-person events and meeting people in real life, alongside a new virtual speed dating experience being tested in Los Angeles. Additionally, a series of AI enhancements were introduced to improve the matching algorithm and enhance user safety.
One of the most notable features is the new Events tab, which will be in beta for users in Los Angeles starting in late May or early June. This feature lets users discover curated local events— such as speakeasies, bowling, raves, and pottery classes — where they can connect with matches in person.
This is a nod to Gen Z’s growing appetite for real-world encounters over endless swiping. There has been a shift away from traditional dating apps, as young people seek authentic offline experiences or unconventional ways to meet potential partners. Other apps, like Breeze, 222, Timeleft, and Thursday, have also tapped into this in-real-life (IRL) trend.
“We’re really trying to tap into meeting younger users at the places where they’re already hanging out,” Hillary Paine, senior vice president of product at Tinder, told TechCrunch. “You can go to an event with your friend and have a good time, or you could meet somebody new. Instead of asking users to choose between their dating life and their social life, we’re trying to blend these things together and create a more social community first experience.”
Profiles of event attendees will be available on the app after the event for users to like and swipe through, a concept reminiscent of “Missed Connections” ads, allowing users who may have lacked the courage to approach someone or simply missed the opportunity to reconnect.
Speed dating is also experiencing a resurgence. To hop on the bandwagon, Tinder revealed it’s now piloting a video speed dating experience in LA, where users can join scheduled three-minute video chats with potential matches. This serves as a “vibe check,” designed to help people break the ice and gauge chemistry before committing to an in-person meeting.
The company noted that users will have the option to extend promising conversations beyond three minutes. Your profile photo has to be verified to join the experience.
Many daters appear to have become fatigued by video chats, making it intriguing to see if this experiment, introduced late in the game, will achieve success. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tinder launched a Face-to-Face feature that was later discontinued, indicating a decline in interest.
AI was also a major theme at the keynote.
Tinder is continuing to invest in the technology, starting with its “Chemistry” feature, which utilizes AI to learn about users through questions and, with their permission, their camera rolls. This feature curates daily matches to help reduce swipe fatigue and is now rolling out in the U.S. and Canada after initial testing in Australia and New Zealand.
In the future, aspects of Chemistry will grow from being just one feature into something that shapes the entire Tinder experience, making it more personalized, the company said.
Additionally, Tinder introduced a new “Learning Mode” that presents more relevant matches earlier on. The system is designed to quickly gain insights into what users are seeking in potential matches, adapting recommendations to better suit personal preferences. Previously, Tinder needed multiple swiping sessions to gather enough signals to personalize well.
With Learning Mode, Paine notes, it can start to understand a user from the very first session. She said, “We’re hoping that this is something that makes Tinder really feel like it understands you from the very first time you use it, or if you’re returning to Tinder after some time away, it feels like it gets me, and I don’t have to spend a lot of time telling Tinder what I’m looking for again.”
Tinder is also enhancing safety features like “Does This Bother You?,” which now uses large language models to better detect harmful messages and auto-blurs disrespectful content, while “Are You Sure?” prompts are being fine-tuned to more accurately identify potentially harmful interactions.
Visually, Tinder is getting a sleek redesign: edge-to-edge profile photos, a subtle blur effect, and a Liquid Glass aesthetic for the Like and Nope bar. New modes are also on the horizon: “Music Mode” will allow up to 20 Spotify songs to auto-populate a user’s profile, and “Astrology Mode” will let users add birth details to unlock their Sun, Moon, and Rising signs and check compatibility. This follows the recent launch of Double Date Mode and College Mode.
Overall, the slew of announcements signals a pivotal shift in Tinder’s approach. While Match reported a positive earnings result in Q4 2025, with $878 million in revenue, the company has faced consecutive quarters of declining paying subscribers. Consequently, it’s under pressure to retain users and restore investor confidence, even as its outlook remains cautious, acknowledging changing user preferences and heightened competition.
It remains to be seen whether these changes will help maintain daters’ interest in the app. However, one thing is clear: Tinder is making a significant commitment to the future of dating, shifting away from solely relying on swiping and adapting to what it believes its young users want.
Tech
Alexa+ gets a new ‘adults only’ personality option that curses but won’t do NSFW content
Amazon’s AI assistant Alexa+ is getting another new personality. On Thursday, the company announced it’s expanding its lineup of personality styles for users to choose from to include a “Sassy” option, which is for adults only. Notes Amazon, before opting to use the Sassy personality, users will be required to go through additional security checks in the Alexa app.
The personality style will also not be available when Amazon Kids is enabled, Amazon says.
The new option joins others like Brief, Chill, and Sweet, launched last month.
When you toggle on the option for Sassy in the Alexa mobile app, you’re warned that the Sassy style uses explicit language, which is why it requires a security check. On iOS, this involved a Face ID scan.
The AI assistant explained its style to us like this: “The Sassy style is built on one premise: help first, judge always. Every answer comes wrapped in wit and a well-placed roast — it’ll answer your question; it’ll just make you feel something about it first. Expect reality checks delivered with charm, compliments that somehow sting, and warmth you didn’t see coming. Equal-opportunity irreverence, zero apologies. Honest, sharp, and funny — and somehow that’s more helpful than helpful.”
Alexa’s app also had warned that the style could contain “mature subject matter.”
However, further investigation discovered this is not Amazon’s version of something like Grok’s adult AI companions. The AI assistant said the new option won’t get into areas like explicit sexual content, hate speech, illegal activities, personal attacks, or anything that could cause harm to oneself or others.
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The move is the latest example of how Amazon is trying to make Alexa+ more customizable, as it revamps the assistant for the generative AI era. By offering the assistant different personalities — including one positioned as more adult — Amazon is borrowing from a broader trend in AI, where companies have been experimenting with tone, style, and personas to make their assistants more engaging and personalized to the individual users’ choices.
Tech
Tesla becomes a utility in the UK, setting up showdown with Octopus Energy
Tesla is now an officially licensed utility in the United Kingdom, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The automotive and energy company recently received a license from the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, allowing it to sell electricity directly to households and commercial and industrial users.
The company has long dabbled in electricity markets. Its first pure energy products, the Powerwall and Powerpack, were introduced in 2015, but it wasn’t until a year later when Tesla merged with SolarCity that it started scaling the division rapidly. In 2022, the company launched Tesla Electric in Texas, which allowed it to sell electricity directly to customers. Powerwall owners can sell electrons from their batteries to participate in the company’s virtual power plant.
The new division, known as Tesla Energy Ventures, will compete with existing utilities in the U.K., including EDF, E.ON, and Octopus Energy. The competition with Octopus should prove particularly interesting. Since its founding in 2015, Octopus has become the country’s largest utility by focusing on slick software, renewable energy, and creative marketing. Sound familiar?
Tech
A writer is suing Grammarly for turning her and other authors into ‘AI editors’ without consent
Grammarly released a controversial feature last week that uses AI to simulate editorial feedback, making it seem like you’re getting a critique from novelist Stephen King, the late scientist Carl Sagan, or tech journalist Kara Swisher. But Grammarly did not get permission from the hundreds of experts it included in this feature, called “Expert Review,” to use their names.
One of the affected writers, journalist Julia Angwin, has filed a class action lawsuit against Superhuman, the parent company that owns Grammarly, arguing that the company violated the privacy and publicity rights of her and the other writers it impersonated. A class action lawsuit allows writers to join Angwin in her case.
“I have worked for decades honing my skills as a writer and editor, and I am distressed to discover that a tech company is selling an imposter version of my hard-earned expertise,” Angwin said in a statement.
The situation is more than a little ironic — Angwin has spent her career leading investigations into tech companies’ impacts on privacy. Other critics of this kind of technology, like renowned AI ethicist Timnit Gebru, were also included in Grammarly’s “Expert Review.”
The “Expert Review” feature, available only to subscribers paying $144 a year, predictably fails to deliver on the promise of thoughtful feedback.
Casey Newton, the founder and editor of the tech newsletter Platformer and another person impersonated by Grammarly, fed one of his articles into the tool and got feedback from Grammarly’s approximation of tech journalist Kara Swisher. Grammarly’s imitation of Swisher produced “feedback” so generic that it raises the question of why the company would go through the rigmarole of using these writers’ likenesses in the first place.
Here is what Grammarly’s approximation of Kara Swisher told him: “Could you briefly compare how daily AI users versus AI skeptics articulate risk, creating a through-line readers can follow?”
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Newton relayed the message from the AI approximation of Kara Swisher to the actual, real human being, Kara Swisher.
“You rapacious information and identity thieves better get ready for me to go full McConaughey on you,” Swisher texted Newton (referring to Grammarly). “Also, you suck.”
Grammarly has since disabled the “Expert Review” feature, according to a LinkedIn post by Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra. While Mehrotra offered an apology, he continued to defend the idea of the feature.
“Imagine your professor sharpening your essay, your sales leader reshaping a customer pitch, a thoughtful critic challenging your arguments, or a leading expert elevating your proposal,” he wrote. “For experts, this is a chance to build that same ubiquitous bond with users, much like Grammarly has.”
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