Tinder isn’t the only major dating app turning away from the swipe and towards real-world events to attract Gen Z users who’ve grown tired of traditional online dating. On Wednesday, Bumble touted the early success of its newest app, Plans, designed to connect people “IRL” in low-pressure, group settings, and spoke of what comes next for Bumble’s flagship app after the “swipe” is dead.

On its second-quarter earnings call with investors, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Heard said the company’s newest app, Plans, showed “promising results” in early tests over the past few months, and the company would “lean more into real-life experiences” going forward.

Combined with Tinder’s news this week that it, too, is doubling down on in-person events, it’s clear there’s a major shift happening in online dating. Simply put, the swipe era is coming to an end.

“I am a firm believer that the future of meeting people in groups will become more important. People love to come together in groups and see who they naturally share chemistry with once they have met,” Wolfe Heard told analysts on the call. “…Group socializing is a real part of how Gen Z prefers to meet, and we believe Bumble represents a natural bridge from meeting to socializing to then dating.”

The company first experimented with real-world, platonic connections with Bumble BFF, an app for making friends, which has shown some traction with Gen Z women.

With Plans, however, the idea is to give young people a way to meet up with others in their community to develop friendships over small group drinks and dinners at local spots, the company said when announcing the app last month. These meetups could later lead to deeper friendships or romantic connections, Bumble believes. By not being primarily focused on dating, it can take the pressure off these first-time encounters.

In addition, users on Plans can continue their chats on Bumble’s app without having to swipe or give out their phone number. In other words, Bumble is promoting “no swiping” as a plus here, suggesting that this format for finding matches is no longer desired among younger users.

Wolfe Heard also teased that Bumble is working on a new interaction model to replace the swipe entirely.

“The core idea is a shift away from optimizing for swipe speed and velocity towards something more intentional, fewer, better, more considered signals,” she said, saying the shift to the “swipe-free” model would happen gradually so as not to disrupt the ecosystem.

“What will replace the swipe? I will be keeping under wraps a bit longer for competitive purposes, but it is designed to generate more immediate interactions and, most importantly, better outcomes, mimicking real life and eliminating the friction and delay that exists in [the] current dating app model,” she added.

The company also plans to leverage more AI tools under the hood to help deliver improved results, but cautioned this would not mean Bumble was becoming an “AI-driven experience.”

Though Bumble beat on earnings in Q2, it’s still in a turnaround phase. The company’s revenue was down ​15.2% to $210.5 ⁠million year-over-year and its stock suffered over its Q3 forecast, which shows a decline in paying customers.

Few automotive companies are as dependent on breakout hits as Ford. It’s almost as though it’s baked into the company’s DNA: From the Model T and the Taurus to the F-150 and the Explorer, Ford has lurched from one success to another.

Recently, though, the automaker has been coming up empty handed. While its U.S. vehicle sales rose 6% year-over-year to 2.08 million in 2025, they’re today less than half their peak of 4.48 million in 2000. Of the new vehicles that Ford has introduced in recent years, none have become a sensation.

Ford CEO Jim Farley is betting its forthcoming EV pickup, Fathom, will change its fortunes, calling the introduction of the truck and its Universal EV platform a “Model T moment” for the company. Ford needs a product that can compete with Chinese EVs, which have been taking the world by storm. Yet, for reasons that are both within and beyond Ford’s control, the Fathom is unlikely to be another Taurus or Explorer, two hits that drove Ford sales in the 1990s.

Now, Fathom could be a minor success. Any way you spin it, the base model will be a good deal. On Thursday, Ford said the Fathom would start at $29,945, including the destination fee. That’s significantly below the $50,000 average for new vehicles and the $56,000 average for EVs. It’s also about $5,000 lower than the Keating Line — the average listing price of the largest price segment available at dealers. 

But consumers don’t decide to buy a car based on price alone. Here’s where Ford could run into some challenges.

The Fathom will be a compact pickup truck, a form factor that the market largely ignored until Ford started selling the Maverick in 2021. The Fathom is entering an under-exploited niche, but it doesn’t appear to be one with enormous potential either. Sales of the Maverick offer a clue: they’ve been brisk, but at 155,000 last year, the small truck is not a blockbuster, either. The Taurus sold more than twice as many at its peak in 1992.

Now, the Fathom appears to have a few advantages over the Maverick. For one, passengers should enjoy a bit more interior space, according to Ford. The EV will also have a frunk, which could sway some buyers of traditional cars who have overlooked pickup trucks for lack of closed storage.

But the Fathom is still a pickup, and not everyone loves that look. The majority of the market today is dominated by SUVs, with just over 70% of prospective buyers looking for an SUV, compared with 33% for pickups, according to Cox Automotive.

Even among pickup fans, the Fathom may struggle to draw buyers. For many, trucks are a vibe. They want them to look ready to tackle the Rubicon trail, even if they never make it beyond the city limits. Every automaker is aware of this. GM, in a recent briefing I attended, made a point to mention how it is delivering the “lifted trucks” that its customers are demanding. The Fathom, from the little we’ve seen so far, doesn’t scream “rugged.”

Then there’s the EV thing. Most people who buy an EV, myself included, would never buy an internal combustion vehicle again, but a lot of people don’t love change. They’re content with gas-powered cars and trucks, and many dealers are happy to keep them in one.

The Fathom’s success won’t be dictated entirely by the whims of the market, though. Ford can spend on marketing and dealer training to overcome the EV hurdle, and may even convince people that a truck with a frunk is an ideal replacement for a sedan. And it’s almost a guarantee that Ford will introduce a ruggedized version of the Fathom. 

Will that be enough to make the Fathom a breakout hit? Probably not. But maybe Ford doesn’t need it to be. 

Maybe the Fathom is a test of its new production process, a toe in the water at a part of the beach that hasn’t been overrun. Compact trucks aren’t setting sales records, but the market for them is still growing. Ford can use that demand to soak up every Fathom it makes while it refines its new platform and process. Then, once it’s confident it has the kinks sorted out, it can expand it to other segments, including SUVs. 

The Fathom may not be Ford’s swing for the fences. Maybe the company’s merely hoping to get on base and lay the groundwork for the next model rolling off the Universal EV platform — the one it really needs to be a home run. 

OpenAI is removing limits on text-based chats for all users on ChatGPT, which recently crossed the 1 billion weekly user mark, the company announced today.

The new GPT-5.6 Luna model will power this experience and will be the default model for Free and Go users, replacing GPT-5.5.

Both users will also get a new “Think” button that lets them select higher reasoning power for complex questions. OpenAI said that there will still be separate limits for files, images, voice, and image generation.

The update brings changes for Plus and Pro users, as well. They’ll gain access to an upgraded GPT-5.6 Sol model that’s better for quick tasks such as questions, web research, advice, planning, writing, and making decisions. The company noted that this new model will give more compact and robust answers. (Notably, this is a separate version from GPT-5.6 Sol used for Codex and Work, which is unchanged.)

ChatGPT Plus and Pro users are also getting a thinking slider to adjust “how much” thought the model puts into an answer. They can tune the thinking slider based on complexity and steps involved in solving a query.

OpenAI said an internal evaluation found that, compared to GPT-5.5-Instant, factual errors were 62% less common for GPT-5.6 Luna and 68% less common for GPT-5.6 Sol.

The updated version of GPT-5.6 Sol is available to Plus and Pro users today, while the other changes for Free and Go users are arriving this week. Next week, users will gain access to unlimited text chats and the new Think button for harder questions.