On an otherwise ordinary night in late October, I went on my second dating app date ever. Before you ask, no, it wasn’t from Hinge. Nor was it from Tinder (scarred from college) or Raya (too many creative directors). The orchestrator of my date was Amata, a new AI-powered dating app that, following its release in Australia, has recently launched in New York.

In an era where seemingly everything is described as AI-powered, it’s easy to scoff at that descriptor. Amata, though, has taken the dating app world’s inching towards an AI future and gone one step further. Rather than swiping through profiles, Amata users are assigned an AI matchmaking avatar, called their “Amata”. After gathering information about you through a series of tailored questions, your AI-powered cupid begins to show you options of potential matches in your area. If you fancy a date with one of these matches, and they tell their Amata matchmaker the same, you then pay $20 for a “token”, which Amata then uses to plan your date, and even book the reservation for the restaurant itself. The catch? The app doesn’t let you speak to your date until two hours before the time you’ve agreed to meet.

If you’ve ever been stuck in pen-pal-purgatory, chatting with an online match for weeks without a date ever materialising, then the appeal of Amata seems obvious. But, as someone who doesn’t regularly use dating apps and has a general iffy-ness about AI use, I can acknowledge I was a somewhat unlikely candidate for this bizarre new platform. Still, after hearing about the app on the content creator Tinx’s podcast, my curiosity was immediately piqued – at least from a scientific perspective. What does it say about our society that the most low-lift stage of dating (the scheduling and planning of a first date) has been outsourced to AI? And how well can a digital avatar actually understand your dating needs, anyway? It felt like there was only one way to find out.

Like other dating apps, the initial setting-up process entailed feeding the platform personal markers such as ethnicity, religious beliefs, if any, and of course, photos; you’re allowed up to six, but already overwhelmed and beginning to second-guess my decision to download the app in the first place, I panicked and opted for just two. Following that, you’re put on a waitlist. Though this step is presumably to vet potential users, I was accepted in less than 24 hours, leading me to wonder how thorough this vetting actually is, and if it’s simply a strategy for building hype and mystique.

Once accepted into the app, I was prompted to choose my AI matchmaker from a selection of nine equally cartoonish-looking avatars. This, to me, felt like the weirdest step, and the one that most reminded me that I was not on an ordinary dating app, but one where I would be essentially handing my love life over to a watercolour caricature. Of the nine, there were five men and four women, all staring back at me with toothy grins. I chose a brunette resting her chin on her hands.

From there, the flurry of dialogue began. On a ChatGPT-esque interface, my Amata attempted to understand my needs and preferences. She asked me questions like what I like to do on the weekends, whether I prefer hanging out in larger groups or small ones, and what I look for in a partner. “Now, I’m going to present you with a few people in New York, and your feedback will help me improve future recommendations,” my Amata told me after digesting my responses. “You can ask me anything about them before deciding if you’d like to meet. Important: accepting someone will lead to a real date – if they say yes, too.”

The first profile my new companion showed me, a 26-year-old tax accountant who moonlighted as a videographer on the side, looked promising. Upon seeing the words “serious”, “committed” and “appreciating marriage” in his Amata-generated bio, however, I panicked, and told my Amata I wasn’t looking for matrimony; she kindly suggested that, in that case, someone else might be a better match. Our conversation continued, with my matchmaker enquiring about my main criteria and preferences. After some back and forth, and some serious decision fatigue on my end, we landed on my first date: let’s call him *Eric.

True to her word, my Amata absorbed both of our availability that week, booked the reservation, and kept the chatroom between Eric and me locked until two hours before the date. “Just let the waiter know that you’re with Amata!” she instructed. As it turns out, that directive wasn’t needed. By the time I arrived at the lower Manhattan restaurant, overheated and slightly wrought with nerves, Eric was already sitting at our table, therefore sparing me the indignity of telling the 20-something hostess I was there to meet an AI-chosen suitor. 

While the forces that led us to our two-hour-long cocktails and small plates session were highly unusual and, in my opinion, rather dystopian, the night proceeded like any other first date. We chatted about our families, our neighbourhoods, our upcoming travel plans; though the mantra “AI DATE AI DATE AI DATE” had been playing in my head on a loop for the entire day, the person sitting in front of me was very much a real human, and not a robot.

Luckily, the machine-learning-shaped elephant in the room was addressed immediately. He told me that, after having been introduced to it by his roommate, he was new to the app; I shared that I was, too. He relayed that, upon arrival, the hostess had no clue what he was talking about when he said he was there with Amata. (Though once he gave his name, she was able to find the reservation.) The absurdity of that anecdote was enough to slice through any awkwardness, provide an easy entry way into conversation, and even bond us against a common foe; it was us on one side, and this strange AI “Big Brother” on the other!

In the end, though, this shared experience wasn’t enough. Despite a perfectly lovely evening, I didn’t feel more than a platonic connection, and through our now-unlocked chatroom, told him just as much several days later. While it could be easy to finger-point and blame our AI matchmaker for being faulty or not good at its job, a sense of incompatibility is something that I, along with plenty of others, have felt on many dates. You meet someone, share a meal or a drink, and while nothing goes wrong, per se, you know that you won’t be seeing them again. This is a pattern that’s not a product of artificial intelligence, or even dating apps as a whole, but of the game of dating itself.

With my trial complete, I’ll be deleting the app from my phone, and, as best as I can, attempting to keep AI out of my love life. Finding a match, I’ve learned, can’t be fast-tracked, no matter how hard technology may try.