LOS ANGELES (April 1, 2025): Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Or was the real pain sitting through a date with someone who still thinks that line works? This April Fools, if you were hoping your flirting game wouldn’t be the joke—think again! Tinder just released The Game Game, an interactive AI chat experience that serves up just the right amount of cringe.

Flirting can be stressful, so The Game Game turns it into something fun. It throws users into over-the-top, meet-cute scenarios that make the unexpected feel less intimidating. Our 2023 Future of Dating Report found that 64% of young singles surveyed internationally said they are comfortable with cringey or awkward situations if it means being authentic¹ —and that’s exactly what The Game Game delivers. It invites users to tap into their vocal charm to win over an AI-generated persona that reacts in real time.

Powered by OpenAI, The Game Game uses its speech-to-speech AI technology to create voices and scenarios so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh–taking the pressure off and making it easy to test your game without overthinking it.

“This project gave us a chance to experiment with how AI can make dating a little more fun and a little less intimidating,” said Alex Osborne, Sr. Director of Product Innovation at Match Group. “We worked with OpenAI to create something that’s lighthearted but rooted in real tech—blending personality, feedback, and just enough playfulness to keep people on their toes.”

HOW IT WORKS:

• To Start - Tap the Tinder® logo in the top left corner of the main card stack screen to enter The Game Game experience.
• Choose A Scenario - Using OpenAI’s technology, users are dealt a stack of cards, each generating an AI persona based on their Discovery Settings (Age/Gender) of who they’re interested in. Every persona comes with a unique scenario, and if users want a new challenge, they can retry for fresh options.
   
• Test Your Skills - Once the scenario is generated, the AI kicks off the conversation. Users respond vocally, relying on their charm to score a date by the end of the session. Depending on how they reply, the chat can either wrap up smoothly—or take a turn.
   
• Rate Your Skills - Users are scored on a three-flame scale, with the AI offering real-time feedback throughout the experience—whether they're making progress or falling flat. The more charm, humor, and wit they bring and the smoother the conversation the closer they get to earning all three flames. But if they’re rude or missing the mark, the AI steps in with prompts like suggesting they tone down the sarcasm or dig deeper with follow-up questions to help them improve and keep the chat on track.
   
• Own Your Skills - At the end of the session, users receive feedback no matter their score–highlighting what they did well and should build on, as well as moments that hurt their conversation and should be avoided next time. Users can then choose to save their score and share it with friends to show off their flirting skills!

"We're continuing to work with platforms like Tinder that are deploying OpenAI thoughtfully in their products to help people build practical skills and confidence,” said Sara Caldwell, Head of Go-To-Market Readiness at OpenAI. "With Realtime API, Tinder is using AI to build fun, engaging experiences with the clear intention of enabling real-world connections and making dating a little less scary."

The Game Game runs on OpenAI’s Realtime API and uses GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini and the Moderation API, with privacy and safety built in. User data will not be used to train any AI models. Now available for Tinder users on iOS in the U.S. for a limited time only!

About Tinder
Launched in 2012, Tinder® revolutionized how people meet, growing from 1 match to one billion matches in just two years. This rapid growth demonstrates its ability to fulfill a fundamental human need: real connection. Today, the app has been downloaded over 630 million times, leading to over 100 billion matches, serving approximately 50 million users per month in 190 countries and 45+ languages - a scale unmatched by any other app in the category. In 2024, Tinder won four Effie Awards for its first-ever global brand campaign, It Starts with a Swipe™.

Tinder, Swipe, the flame logo, It Starts with a Swipe, and The Game Game are all trademarks of Tinder LLC.

¹ A survey of 4000 18-25 year olds in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia between April 21, 2023 and April 25, 2023 conducted by Opinium on behalf of Tinder.