Hinge founder Justin McLeod is stepping down as CEO of the dating app, with Tinder executive Garth Slattery taking over Hinge as it moves closer to becoming an independent company after being incubated within Match Group for years.
Marketed as a voice-forward service that uses artificial intelligence to spark deeper, more meaningful connections, Overtone is on a mission to overhaul the way singles meet online.
Jackie Jantos, Hinge’s president and chief marketing officer, will take over as CEO, and McLeod will advise Hinge during a transition period.
Why Match Is Betting on a Spinout for Hinge and AI
Match Group, which operates Hinge, Tinder, and OkCupid, has been adding AI to its roster while having to respond to shifting customer expectations. Company filings have pointed to weakness in paying subscribers at Tinder through multiple quarters, a possible sign of broader swipe fatigue and shifting habits among Gen Z. Hinge, by contrast, has been a growth engine; internal projections put the app on pace for $1 billion in annual revenue by 2027.
Hinge has already found some traction with AI add-ons. The company said its AI recommendation system, which it introduced in March, increased matches and contact exchanges by 15 percent in the quarter that followed. This week, Hinge also launched Convo Starters to help users transition past stilted small talk — an acknowledgment that the problem isn’t just a tick in the box for matching but having an actual conversation.
Spinning up Overtone as its own brand allows Match to experiment with a bolder, AI-first experience without throwing off Hinge’s core identity. It also dovetails with a larger industry theme: Leaders, including Bumble’s founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, have articulated desires to construct emotionally intelligent AI matchmakers, suggesting a next wave of agentic dating tools over mere chat assistants.
What We Know About Overtone, Hinge’s New AI Dating App
Overtone, it says, is an AI voice service in its early stages that blends AI and voice together to establish a more personal connection. Though specifics are hush-hush, the framing implies a product that favors live and/or asynchronous audio — think voice-first profiles, AI-enabled intros personalized to the user’s style, and coaching on how to fearlessly ask for contact. The promise is intimacy without performance pressure from everything being perfectly filtered photos and witty bios.
If that’s the direction, it would solve an enduring pain point in online dating: the gulf between small-screen matching and real-world meeting. Voice can be a good indicator of tone, humor, and empathy in ways text just isn’t — layer an AI on top of that to translate this and you could have smarter prompts for conversations with better signs of compatibility, or nudges when the energy has flatlined. The risk is over-automation. “If you send bots in to do this kind of thing, what are your personal experiences going to be like?” Jonathan Badeen, one of Tinder’s founders and engineering specialists, said in an interview with the tech news site Recode last year.
A Fast-Evolving AI Playbook for Modern Dating Apps
Product roadmaps across the category are heavier on AI to fight churn and get better results. Leadership has teased features that are in the works for Tinder, including projects that take a look at user content — with their permission — to improve how people match. Facebook Dating has tested AI-generated matches, and a handful of other dating apps are testing AI to set you up. Personalization at scale is the common theme, and we see tangible results in match quality, response rate, and time to a first date.
Privacy and transparency will be core to Overtone’s appeal. Users consistently reward bright data boundaries and knobs, especially when the product brushes camera rolls, voice samples, or behavioral signals. And independent research from organizations like Pew Research Center shows that people are becoming more troubled over data use and privacy in dating apps, even as they remain skeptical of whether an app can truly protect their information. Winning apps largely explain how the AI works, when it does something, and what’s opt-in.
Implications for Hinge and the Dating App Industry
McLeod’s pivot is a bet that AI-native experiences deserve their own canvas, not just bolt-on features. For Hinge, the continuity seems strong: Jantos has emphasized “intentional innovation” that has its roots in culture and creativity, and her team’s recent AI-powered launches indicate that rhythm will persist. Overtone could be a differentiation acquisition funnel that pulls in users seeking more authenticity from their encounters, or it might function as an ideas testbed that funnels concepts into Hinge and Tinder.
In terms of what we measure, it’s simple: lift in replies and conversation depth; the reduction of ghosting and acceleration to first date; retention past that initial novelty window. If Overtone can move those needles while building trust on safety and data use, it could provide a template for the next era of dating apps — one less dependent on endless swipes and more on curated, human-sounding connection.
The stakes are high. After a decade of discreet dates and onscreen courtships, the dating scene is going through another format shift. With Overtone, McLeod is betting that AI with voice and guardrails can help online dating feel less like a game and more like a worthy conversation.
