Before You Fall In Love, CMB Wants To Make Sure They’re Real
Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) just relaunched. But first, it had a question for the room: can you spot a fake?
- CMB's multi-layered safety system catches fake profiles before users ever open the app, using AI photo screening and selfie verification.
- CMB became Singapore's first dating app to integrate with Singpass, with around 80% of Singapore users now verified through it.
- The 2.0 relaunch introduces Headlines, Topic Suggestions, and Real Dates, boosting messages sent with likes by 30%.
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At a media session in Singapore last month, Rachel Tee stood at the front of the room and said, “Let’s play a game.”
Tee is dating app Coffee Meet Bagel’s (CMB) Head of Trust & Safety — and she had several profiles ready.
One by one, they appeared on screen.
The audience voted. Real, or fake?
They got most of them wrong.
Tee opened with a metaphor that stuck: think of your email inbox.
You never see the spam. It’s already gone by the time you open the app in the morning.
That’s the feeling we want our users to have. Dating is peace of mind — connecting without worrying.
“Say goodbye to catfish,” Tee told the room, referring to the internet term meaning someone who creates a fake online identity.
Then she explained, with considerable precision, how.
Before You Ever Open The App
The safety stack starts before you ever open the app — fake accounts are banned before they reach a single user.
Every photo passes through an AI model built to catch AI-generated images — the kind that look almost convincing but betray themselves in the eyes, the fingers, the too-smooth edges of a jaw.
Tee walked the room through each layer methodically: photo screening, selfie verification, message moderation — every message scanned before it lands in your inbox.
Inappropriate openers trigger a warning pop-up; users can report.
The system, Tee said, is dynamic — always screening, never static.
For Singapore, CMB went one step further.
It became the first dating app in the country to integrate with Singapore Personal Access (Singpass), Singapore’s national digital identity system, and around 80% of Singapore users are now verified through it.
Within three months of launching selfie verification, 81% of active users had completed it.
The stack runs deeper than most users realise: fraud detection, message moderation, reputation management, and human review — all running in parallel. CMB also works directly with local law enforcement in each market, Tee said, supporting investigations when platform measures are not enough.
We can’t do this alone.
When The Real Ones Misbehave
When an audience member asked what happens to real users sending inappropriate messages — not fake profiles, just bad behaviour — Tee was direct: the moderation layer catches them too.
Pop-up warning, option to report, escalation from there.
Another asked about AI-edited photos — real person, AI-touched background, AI-smoothed skin.
Tee’s answer: as long as the selfie verification matches, the system clears you.
The moment it doesn’t, the flag goes up.
It’s a dynamic system, she said — always screening, right up until the point a photo is approved.
A third question came on location spoofing — users faking their city to appear in markets they don’t live in.
That one went to another CMB executive, who said the app makes location changes deliberately difficult.
Do it too often, and it becomes a trust-and-safety flag in itself.
The App Had Flaws, Here’s What They Built Instead
CMB relaunched its 2.0 platform on 21 July, built around the finding that the swipe mechanic had trained users to be unreasonably picky — one woman in Hong Kong rejected a man because she didn’t like the sky in his photo.
Head of Product Jason Teo spent two and a half years interviewing thousands of users across multiple countries to reach that conclusion.
The relaunch introduces three free features: Headlines, Topic Suggestions, and Real Dates.
Early numbers show a 30% uplift in messages sent with likes and a 21% increase in profile viewing time.
CEO Shn Juay has framed the whole push as dating that is more intentional, authentic, and safe — especially for women.
Since 2012, CMB has facilitated over 260 million matches, according to its data.
Closer to home, CMB has found a loyal following among urban professionals in KL — particularly, anecdotally, among Malaysian Chinese daters who tend to favour high-intent platforms over casual browsing.
View on Threads
Peace Of Mind Is The Product
Safety wasn’t supposed to be the story; the story was supposed to be better dates, warmer profiles, smarter conversation starters.
But Tee’s session landed differently — because it made the problem visceral in a way a product deck cannot.
You can build the most thoughtful recommendation engine in the world, nudge people to meet offline on day five, or you can help a man turn five minutes of reading a woman’s profile into something better than hi.
None of it works if the profile is a ghost.
The woman who got matched with a verified, SingPass-confirmed, selfie-checked real human — and still received an opener that read “bee love my head so much” — she needed the moderation layer too.
Tee’s game at the start of the session wasn’t a gimmick; it was the thesis.
Most people cannot tell; that’s why the system has to.
Tee closed with an image: a buffet table.
Nobody pushing food at you or forcing a seat; you just stand there and choose, freely, without having to be on guard.
That, she said, is what the whole safety stack is actually building toward — not just a cleaner app, but the mental space to actually date.
Let’s date for something real.
READ MORE: You Have 200 Matches And Zero Dates, This App Says It Knows Why
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