We analyzed 36,486 AI-written dating replies. Here is what people actually send.

FlirtCopilot writes ten replies every time someone pastes a message or uploads a chat screenshot. The person then copies one, or none. That copy is a vote: out of ten options, this is the one they were willing to send. Over the last 90 days we counted the votes. This is what 2,240 people chose, and what they skipped.

36,486replies generated, by 6,231 people
12,677lines copied to send, by 2,240 people
86characters: the median copied reply
49.5%of copied replies contain a question
0lines copied by five or more different people

1. Not one line was copied by five different people

We expected a leaderboard of killer openers. There is none. Across 12,677 copied lines, no single line was copied by five or more different people, and almost every copied line is unique. The replies that get sent are the ones that mention the other person's actual message, bio, photo or joke. The generic line loses to the specific one every time, which is the whole reason a reply written from the real conversation beats a list of pickup lines.

2. The reply people send is one text bubble long

The median copied reply is 86 characters, roughly 15 to 17 words. Half of all copied replies fall between 70 and 106 characters. Only 10% are shorter than 58 characters, and only 10% run past 136. That is one bubble on a phone: long enough to say one specific thing and ask one thing back, short enough to read without scrolling.

Copied reply lengthCharacters
Shortest 10%under 58
Lower quarter70
Median86
Upper quarter106
Longest 10%over 136

3. Half of them ask something

49.5% of copied replies contain a question. The pattern that shows up over and over is a specific callback followed by an easy question: notice one thing in their message or profile, react to it, then hand them the next move. Other habits of the copied lines: 57.6% use the word "you", 54.6% use "I", 26.7% contain an emoji, 19.8% an exclamation mark, and only 3.6% an ellipsis. 13.1% open with the other person's name.

4. Openers from a profile get sent more than replies to a message

When someone uploads a screenshot of a profile and asks for an opener, 50.1% of those generations end with a copied line. When they paste a message and ask for a reply, it is 34.4%, and typed context without a screenshot lands at 32.7%. Openers written from a photo alone are the hardest: 17.7%. A profile gives the AI, and you, something concrete to work with; a photo mostly does not.

What the person gave the AIGenerationsEnded in a copy
A profile screenshot (wants an opener)4,13150.1%
A chat screenshot (wants a reply)16,00634.4%
Pasted text (a message or bio)15,14332.7%
A photo only (wants an opener)55817.7%

5. Sweet beats funny, by a lot

Every generation carries the tone the person asked for. Flirty and bold are requested most, but sweet is the tone whose lines most often get copied: 52.1% of sweet generations produced a sent line. Funny came last at 19.2%. Two honest caveats: the person chooses the tone, so some of this is who picks sweet versus who picks funny; and "funny" is the hardest thing to write for someone else, human or AI.

Tone requestedGenerationsPeopleEnded in a copy
Sweet3,20382852.1%
Flirty9,2982,50137.9%
Bold and flirty8,9392,89835.6%
Warm and playful2,3501,04633.1%
Smooth3,6051,30730.6%
Casual1,86184421.4%
Funny1,67284819.2%

6. How the copied lines open

No two copied lines are the same, but they start the same way surprisingly often. These are the opening phrases (first three words) chosen by the most different people, out of 12,677 copied lines:

Opening phraseDifferent people who copied a line starting this way
"You've got me..."65
"I love how..."51
"I love that..."42
"Is it just..."41
"I love a..."40
"Is that a..."38
"I have to..."37
"You just made..."34
"I'm ready to..."32
"You're making it..."27
"The way you..."25
"I'm already picturing..."23
"I'm curious, what's..."23
"Sounds like a..."18
"So you're saying..."18
"Me encanta que..." (Spanish)17

Two families deserve a note. "I love how / that / a..." is the workhorse: a direct, specific compliment about something the other person said or did. "Is it just me..." is the most polarising opener in the data: it is the phrase the AI reaches for most, it was copied by 41 different people, and it is also the opener most often left behind. Use it once, never twice.

7. What a copied reply looks like

A few lines people copied, chosen because they contain no names and nothing private. They are AI suggestions, not anything a user wrote:

Notice the shape: one specific reaction, one easy question, one bubble.

8. When people flirt

Copies peak between 16:00 and 19:00 UTC: late morning to early afternoon in the US, evening in the UK and Europe, late night in India, which together make up most of the audience. The quietest hours are 06:00 to 09:00 UTC. By day of the week, Sunday is the quietest, about 15% below the weekday average; Saturday is not the peak, Tuesday and Wednesday are slightly ahead of the rest. About 6% of copied lines are in Spanish and about 1% in German; the rest are English.

Hour (UTC)Copied lines, 90 days
00-032,050
04-071,649
08-111,488
12-151,914
16-193,005
20-232,625

What to take from this if you write your own

Methodology and privacy

Window: 30 June to 28 September 2026. Generation counts include only real visitors; test traffic, crawlers and our own team's usage are excluded with the same filters we use for every internal report. "Copied" means the person tapped copy on a suggested line; we cannot see whether it was sent, and we cannot see replies. Every line quoted or counted above is an AI suggestion produced by FlirtCopilot, not a message a user typed or received; no user messages, screenshots or profiles were read for this analysis, and nothing a user types, uploads or generates is published. Opening-phrase counts are by distinct people, not by number of copies. Tone and input-type copy rates reflect what people chose to ask for as well as how the lines performed. Figures are rounded to one decimal.

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FAQ

How long should a dating app reply be?

In this data the median copied reply was 86 characters, about 15 to 17 words, and half fell between 70 and 106. One text bubble.

Do questions get better replies on dating apps?

People clearly think so: 49.5% of the replies they chose to send contained a question. A question hands the other person an easy next move.

Which tone works best for flirting over text?

Sweet had the highest copy rate at 52.1%, funny the lowest at 19.2%. Tone is chosen by the user, so part of this is who picks which tone, but the gap is large.