Single adults are fed up with dating apps.
They might be turning to old-fashioned social media to find their next partner instead.
Instagram is the most popular place to meet and communicate with a potential partner, at least for the hundreds of thousands of people using Rizz, an AI dating assistant.
Rizz, which is slang for charisma, launched in 2022. It functions like a dating coach, helping users craft witty responses to messages and less cringey pick-up lines.
“Dating coaches charge $30 to $300 an hour. Not everybody can afford paying over $30 an hour. So the moment ChatGPT launched, I already had this idea in the back of my mind,” Rizz cofounder and CEO Roman Khaves told Business Insider.
Users upload screenshots of conversations from dating apps, messaging apps, or social media to Rizz, which then generates a response. The app leverages ChatGPT but fine-tunes its responses based on prior responses it generated. So the more you use it, the better and more personalized its responses will be, Khaves said.
Rizz costs $7 a week or $20 a month and has about half a million monthly active users. The platform’s user base is 65% male and 35% female and most of them fall between 18 and 35. They’re largely from English-speaking countries.
Khaves shared data with BI showing that 22% of the screenshots uploaded to Rizz now come from Instagram, an 8% increase from a year ago. About 15% come from iMessage and 11% from WhatsApp. Dating apps comprise a smaller share, with Tinder at 11%, Hinge at 10%, and Bumble at 4%.
It’s not uncommon for potential partners to meet on a dating app and quickly move their conversation to text or even Instagram. But Rizz sees evidence in the data that Instagram is becoming a first-choice destination for dating.
“Instagram has evolved into this fascinating dual-purpose platform for relationships,” Khaves said. “Whether it’s sliding into DMs or naturally connecting through shared content, people are both starting and deepening their connections entirely within Instagram.”
Dating on Instagram isn’t new. Celebrity couples — like Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, or exes Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid — and regular couples alike have found love on Instagram. The data from Rizz shows it’s only becoming more popular as users give up on regular dating apps.
Rizz’s algorithms can track the source of screenshots, distinguishing whether a user uploads them from an Instagram story or a direct message. What’s less clear is the history behind the relationship. “The one thing we don’t know is how long they know the person, whether they’ve been friends with them on Instagram for a while or not,” Khaves said.
Rizz is already developing features tailored to Instagram, where the first move could be linked to a story or a picture rather than a prompt on Hinge. Instagram also introduced a feature in September that allows users to leave comments under stories, making it easier for mutual followers to interact with each other.
The reason people are moving away from dating apps might be simple — they offer too much data about a person upfront.
“Think about it — in real life, you don’t walk up to someone with a resume of your height, job, and dating intentions. Instead, you get to know them gradually through shared moments and mutual interests, which is exactly what Instagram enables,” Khaves said.
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