What does it take to find love in the modern world? More and more it usually comes down to an eye-catching profile picture and a swipe of a finger. The rest is left to the all-important first, real-life date.

Today, there are apps for every possible niche in the dating world – vegans, gamers, and even Disney fanatics. The inner workings of some dating apps are as simple as just showing users an endless stream of profiles with no real process in place. But often, apps match users by letting them set their preferences and asking questions when they sign up, feeding into an algorithm that will suggest the best matches.

You’d think this approach would help users succeed in the dating game. But these kinds of systems can be fairly superficial and lack actual understanding of user behaviour on a real, personal level. For example, a user might mention something in their bio or profile description which suggests a preference, but their behaviour might indicate something else entirely. Equally, many users might not fill out their profile entirely, meaning the app doesn’t have a complete picture.

Our data scientists have a different kind of approach for match-making. Using advanced artificial intelligence tools, dating apps can analyse trends in user behavioural data, which is information about how they interact with the app and the chats they’ve had on it, to connect profiles on a deeper level.

To do this, our AI needs some information about the specific goal of the dating app. The dating company needs to decide what kind of service they want to provide for their users. We all know Tinder is a ‘dating’ app, whereas Hinge is largely aimed at people looking for more serious relationships.

So how do you define success in the dating world, and what do they consider a successful match or a goal? It’s the dating company’s call.

Much like Hinge’s slogan ‘designed to be deleted’, a goal could be that the user deletes the app due to a successful relationship a few weeks after meeting someone in the app. Another mark of success could be that a user goes on a date through the app. But it can be even shorter-term, like over five messages sent between two users, or as simple as two users matching.

When the dating company has defined its goal, they need to start collecting historic data about how users were able to connect with each other. Advanced AI is a powerful tool, but’s effectiveness is confined to the data it’s trained on. So it needs a data set to get started. As soon as the data is ready, the Utopia team will create a bespoke AI model, in line with the goals of your app, to provide match-making as a service.

With AI in place, dating companies can build the best dating app possible and bring an enhanced level of service to their users, built around their goals and the kind of service they want to provide.