75% bots on 20 apps, and a refund if you don’t marry
Seven stories this fortnight, not fourteen: we dropped every story we could not confirm at the source. Most of the seven ask the same thing — is the person on the other side real, and do they want what you want? Tell us what you are building.
How many matches on 20 dating apps were actually Claude bots?
About three in four. For every honest platform, this is the new first question users ask: not “who is here?” but “is anyone here?”. Anthropic says a China-based studio used Claude to run more than 20 dating apps. Over two weeks in April 2026, more than 4,700 AI personas talked to at least 25,000 people and sent about 2.36 million messages. Users paid in-app coins to keep chatting. When someone asked for a video call, a hired person took over. The apps told users every profile was a real person. For three out of four matches, the real person was an API subscription. Anthropic banned the accounts.
👉 Related: an AI companion that tells users it is AI
Match Group’s CEO says Hinge could one day earn more than Tinder
Spencer Rascoff told a Goldman Sachs conference on 8 September that Hinge may have a bigger revenue opportunity than Tinder. His reason is simple: people who want a long-term relationship may pay more for that result. He also said Tinder had lost its fit with what users now expect. His list of next steps: Face Check video selfies, events and real-time recommendations.
Do this week: open your pricing page and check whether any plan is sold on the result users want, not on a list of features.
👉 Related: See Dating Pro plans and prices
How much does Liangpei refund if you don’t marry in three years?
2,000 yuan. A guarantee turns a dating app from a subscription into a promise, and a promise is easier to sell to people who want marriage. Liangpei is a Chinese app that launched in July and uses AI matching, Sixth Tone reports. Most dating apps earn more the longer you stay single. Liangpei pays you if you do.
👉 Built for matchmakers? See Matchmaking Edition
Wild says it now has 900,000 verified members in 57 countries
Wild, a dating app, says more than 900,000 of its members are verified, across 57 countries. The number it chose to announce is verified people, not downloads. In the same month Anthropic showed how cheap fake profiles have become, that choice makes sense. For a dating app, verified members are the users other users are willing to meet.
Do this week: count what share of your active profiles passed any check — photo, phone or ID. That share is your trust score, whether you publish it or not.
California signs new child safety laws for AI companion chats
On 10 September Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of child safety laws for chatbots and social media, including SB 1119. For any product with an AI companion, how it protects young users is now set by law in California, not only by your own policy. The governor’s office calls the package the strongest in the country. The full list of laws is in the official release.
Upward, Match Group’s Christian dating app, relaunches around marriage
Match Group relaunched Upward on 22 September and now presents it as a home for modern courtship. It is the second time this month the company sells the result, not the swipe — after Rascoff’s words about Hinge. The app speaks to users who already know they want marriage. Match Group also owns Tinder and Hinge, so this is the same company testing the same idea on a smaller, niche audience.
Do this week: ask five paying users what result they joined for, and put their exact words on your landing page.
Tantan swaps swipes for group runs in three Asian cities
Tantan, a dating app in Asia, is moving users from their phones to running tracks. For any platform the lesson is clear: people who meet at an event arrive already talking, so the app’s job moves from matching to hosting. The first Run & Mingle in Malaysia on 6 September had 43 runners. A run in Bangkok on 20 September expected about 300 people. A bar run in Taichung in October plans for about 3,000. Tantan’s fix for tired thumbs is tired legs. The events are free to copy: a run club, a start time and a place to meet after.
👉 Built for matchmakers? See Matchmaking Edition
That’s the fortnight. See you in two weeks.
Dating Pro — software for people who run dating platforms