Meta claims that it is adding new features to Facebook Dating to help users receive more tailored matches.

Meta announced on Monday in a blog post that it is introducing an AI dating assistant chatbot within Facebook Dating to help users search for matches based on specific criteria, including location, profession, and interests. Users can enter prompts based on their preferences, like “Find me a Brooklyn girl in tech,” and the chatbot will assist with the search. Of course, users can still search for more than the traditional traits, such as height and education, Meta wrote in the blog post.

“It can help you find better matches based on your interests and preferences, giving you refined search and custom match recommendations,” the blog post reads.

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The AI dating assistant will start “gradually” rolling out in the U.S. and Canada starting this week and will be located on the Matches tab within Facebook Dating.

Meta also introduced another feature to Facebook Dating on Monday called Meet Cute, an option that gives users a weekly “surprise match” selected by Meta’s algorithm. Meet Cute offers the same advantage as the AI dating assistant: Users don’t have to swipe in order to get a match.

“Meet Cute is ideal for anyone who’s tired of swiping and is looking for a fresh, easy way to expand their typical pool of dating candidates,” Meta wrote in the blog post.

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What Is Facebook Dating?

Meta introduced Facebook Dating in September 2019, releasing it as a feature within the Facebook mobile app on Android and iOS for existing Facebook members.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of adults in the U.S. and Canada have created Facebook Dating profiles every month, and young adult matches among people ages 18 to 29 are up 10% year-over-year, per Meta’s blog post. It’s unclear how many active users Facebook Dating has.

Competing dating apps have millions of users — Tinder has 50 million monthly active users, while Hinge has 10 million, according to Wired.

Meta isn’t the only company investing in AI for dating. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, and other dating apps, entered into an agreement with OpenAI last year to bring ChatGPT internally to employees. The AI chatbot has since helped the company’s staff with coding, communications, and design, in addition to other tasks.

Related: Bumble Dating App Pushes to Make Online Dating Profitable With New Features, Sweeping Redesign

The move was part of Match Group’s $20 million investment in AI, which has resulted in features like AI-powered matching on Tinder, released in February, and AI text editing on Hinge, which debuted in January. Despite introducing AI features, Match rival Bumble also released an AI-powered feature last month called Deception Detector, which uses AI to filter out fake, spam, or scam profiles.

Still, the dating tech market isn’t on the up. Match Group’s stock has lost about 65% of its value in the past five years due to declines in paying users, while Bumble has also faced drops in paying users. The company reported last month that for its second quarter, total paying users decreased 8.7% to 3.8 million.

Spirit Airlines is set to furlough 1,800 flight attendants, according to a memo sent to staff from John Bendoraitis, Spirit’s chief operating officer, on Monday.

“As we work to return Spirit to profitability, we face difficult decisions about our network, our fleet, and ultimately our workforce,” the memo said, per The Wall Street Journal. “We need to shift our focus to a complete rightsizing of the airline, which means volume-based adjustments to our Flight Attendant group, and across our teams. This is hard news, and we understand it affects not only you and your peers but also your families.”

Last week, Spirit CEO Dave Davis warned staff that job cuts were imminent after the company filed its second bankruptcy in less than a year in late August. The cuts announced on Monday will impact one-third of the company’s total cabin crew members.

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^{Travelers at a Spirit Airlines bag drop at LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in the Queens borough of New York, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

The current, voluntary furloughs can be selected for six or 12 months, and those who choose the leave will keep medical benefits while out, according to a note sent by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) union to its members and seen by CNBC.

Bendoraitis said that about 800 flight attendants are already on leave, but there is a “limit to how many people can volunteer.” Hundreds of pilots have already been furloughed.

Involuntary furloughs will begin on Dec. 1, the union said.

Earlier this month, Spirit announced that it was ending service to a dozen cities in October, and rival airlines are already swooping in. Frontier Airlines, for example, which has a 35% overlap with Spirit on routes, per CNBC, said it would be adding 20 new routes.

“If Spirit suddenly goes out of business, it will be incredibly disruptive, so we’re adding these flights to give their customers other options if they want or need them,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, in a press release at the time.

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A major automaker just experienced a data breach that could affect tens of millions of customers.

Stellantis, the carmaker behind Jeep, Fiat, Chrysler, and Dodge, stated on Sunday in a press release that it “recently” uncovered “unauthorized access” to a third-party service platform part of its customer service operations in North America.

“We are also notifying the appropriate authorities and directly informing affected customers,” Stellantis wrote in the press release. The release notes that while contact information was exposed, financial information was not. The statement did not specify the types of contact information affected.

Related: Jaguar Land Rover Shuts Down Production After Cyberattack, Costing the Company More than a Billion So Far

Stellantis, which was created in 2021 following the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, is the world’s fifth-largest automaker by sales volume.

The car company did not reveal the number of people impacted by the breach. However, the ShinyHunters cybercriminal group claimed responsibility for the attack and told tech site BleepingComputer on Monday that it had stolen more than 18 million Salesforce records from Stellantis, including names and contact information.

^{A 2025 Stellantis Jeep Wrangler, a 2025 Stellantis Ram 1500, and a 2025 Stellantis Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

ShinyHunters has been going after high-profile Salesforce customers since the beginning of the year by using voice phishing attacks to steal data. Google confirmed in June that ShinyHunters was responsible for a data breach affecting one of its own Salesforce databases that contained information about small and medium-sized businesses.

Related: ‘Largest Data Breach in History’: Apple, Google, and Meta Passwords Reportedly Among 16 Billion Stolen in Massive Hack

Louis Vuitton and insurance company Allianz Life also experienced data breaches in July that were linked to the ShinyHunters group.

According to the National CIO Review, ShinyHunters employs a consistent attack strategy: Someone calls a company employee pretending to be IT support and has them download an app, which grants the attacker access to customer data. The attacker then steals information like names, emails, and phone numbers, and demands ransom payments from the company to stop the publication of the data.

ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer that it had stolen over 1.5 billion Salesforce records from 760 companies in total so far.

Nvidia may be the most valuable company in the world, surging to a record-high $4.395 trillion market capitalization over the past few months, but when it comes to stock growth, one surprising company has it beat: Build-A-Bear Workshop.

Build-A-Bear’s stock grew by more than 2,000% over the past five years, making it one of the top 20 companies in the world by share growth, per The Washington Post. Company shares are up over 60% year-to-date at the time of writing. According to Build-A-Bear’s earnings report for the second quarter ending August 2, total revenue hit $124.2 million, an 11% increase from the same period last year. It was the company’s most profitable second quarter in its history.

Build-A-Bear’s stock growth beats the world’s biggest tech giants, such as Nvidia (surged by over 1,300% in the past five years, with shares up over 30% year-to-date); Microsoft (stock grew by 147% across the past five years); and Oracle (stock swelled 444% across the same time period).

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At Build-A-Bear, customers stuff a plush toy, add a toy heart, and dress the stuffed animal. The company was founded in October 1997 in Saint Louis, Missouri, and the experience in stores has remained consistent since its founding.

The company’s CEO, Sharon Price John, who took over in 2013, told CNBC that the process of making a bear is “a really emotional, memorable experience that creates a tremendous amount of equity.” The store’s in-person experience contributes to its resilience, even as other mall stores like Claire’s close hundreds of locations.

^{Build-A-Bear Workshop in Denver, Colorado. Photo by Joe Amon/The Denver Post via Getty Images}

“Those strong feelings that consumers have for brands are very stretchable beyond just that one experience,” John told the outlet.

University of Pennsylvania Marketing Professor Americus Reed told CNBC that the “ritualistic” process of creating a stuffed animal at Build-A-Bear creates a memorable experience that is “really hard to replicate.” Build-A-Bear creates a deeper connection with its customers, building a sense of loyalty, Reed explained.

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Zach Wray, a customer whose family has hundreds of bears, told The Washington Post that the experience of creating a stuffed animal is what keeps his kids coming back to Build-A-Bear.

“They make it really special for the kids,” Wray told the outlet.

Nostalgia also plays a role in the company’s growth. A recent survey released by Build-A-Bear earlier this month shows that 92% of adults still have their childhood stuffed animal, and nearly 100% say that teddy bears are for all ages. Two-fifths (40%) of Build-A-Bear’s customers are adults, not kids, according to The Washington Post.

Build-A-Bear has 627 stores across 32 countries, 100 of which opened within the past two years. The company told The Washington Post that it plans to open 60 more locations this year, and that almost all of its stores in North America were profitable.

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