Hinge: Convo Starters AI aims to stop people from opening with “hey”

Hinge is adding a new AI-assisted tool to help daters open better conversations, the company announced in a press release shared with Mashable. The feature, called Convo Starters, offers personalized suggestions for initiating chats based on a potential match’s prompts and photos.

The rollout follows Hinge’s earlier experiments with generative tools. In its latest research, the company found that younger daters are increasingly turning to AI to navigate dating — and Hinge previously introduced AI-driven prompt feedback to help users craft stronger profiles. Convo Starters appears when a user sends a like to another profile and presents three distinct tips that encourage asking questions, sharing ideas or expressing opinions. The suggestions are optional, and users can enable or disable the feature in settings. Hinge says members are still expected to write messages in their own voice rather than paste AI-generated text.

“We’ve heard from daters that not knowing what to say can hold them back from sending a comment at all,” Hinge’s president and CMO Jackie Jantos said in the release. “With Convo Starters, we’re easing that pressure.”

Hinge also highlighted that the new feature combines generative AI with insights from its research team and behavioral scientists. The company emphasized that Convo Starters — like its Prompt Feedback tool — does not provide one-size-fits-all copy-and-paste responses, pointing to its AI principles of transparency, authenticity and equity.

The feature is available in the U.S. at launch. The move is in step with a broader trend: Hinge’s research suggests Gen Z daters struggle more than millennials with initiating deeper conversation, and other apps have rolled out similar capabilities. For example, Bumble previously introduced AI icebreakers in its friends product (Bumble for Friends AI icebreakers), and Tinder is testing an AI matching feature called Chemistry (Tinder Chemistry).