Can Slack's CEO Help Bumble 'Supercharge Love With AI'?

Bumble Inc‘s BMBL founder CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is stepping down and becoming executive chair. She is being succeeded by the current Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, who will move into the position on Jan. 2, 2024.

About a year ago, when Jones replaced Stewart Butterfield as CEO at Slack, he said she was "pragmatic and practical, insightful, passionate, creative, kind and curious.” Jones worked in various positions at Microsoft, Sonos and Salesforce Inc CRM, before becoming CEO of Slack, which is owned by Salesforce.

“Lidiane's expertise and track record in product and technology is exceptional and having her leading the next chapter of Bumble Inc. is a major win for our company, customers and team," said Herd, as reported by TechCrunch.

Jones is taking charge at a time when the dating app market could be losing its steam. Even Match Group‘s MTCH Tinder, the most-used dating app, is losing traction.

Tinder saw its new registrations and reactivations weaken slightly in the third quarter. “In the U.S., new users were down 6% year over year in September compared to June when they were down 2% year over year,” according to Match Group’s third-quarter earnings call transcript.

Investors in dating apps believe AI integration could bring about a change in that phenomenon.

At the Code Conference last month, Herd hinted at what’s next for Bumble. She talked about how Bumble would be looking at leveraging AI technology to help people find more compatible matches. “I would really think about AI as a supercharger to love and relationships,” she said.

Now, Jones is taking the reins, and declaring that she would “really want to embark big on AI” as "AI and generative AI can play such a big role [in matchmaking],” in an interview with Wall Street Journal. Jones believes AI can enhance connections and community-building within the Bumble platform.

BMBL Price Action: Bumble shares have been trading higher since the announcement was made on Nov. 6. BMBL stock was trading up 2.98% at $13.82 at publication Wednesday.