LOVE IS AN ALGORITHM
US: Park Row Books/Harper, 2026;; UK/AUSTRALIA: Text Publishing
*A Book of the Month Club Selection
* A Portalist Most Anticipated Book of 2026
Pattern is more than just a dating app—it’s your friendly relationship coach. It will tell you whether you should invest in learning your partner’s love language (quality time!) or pull the escape hatch (red flags galore!). The latest version of Pattern includes Bug, a friendly AI chatbot guaranteed to give you bespoke relationship advice and help revitalize that spark. Take the uncertainty out of love!
Eve wants to make music that’s fueled by love, passion, and rage (feelings!). She trusts her gut and her friends and in no way wants to rely on technology, let alone AI, to tell her how she feels. Danny is anxious—about his dad, his dating life, his coffee order (why is it twelve dollars?), and about the dating app he helped create, which seems determined to serve him terrible matches.
When Eve and Danny start dating, it feels like the solution to all of Danny’s worries—except when it doesn’t. Is she happy? Should he be doing more? Or less? This becomes the catalyst for a revolutionary new version of Danny’s app that promises to quantify relationship health and potential, helping users understand what’s really going on. Problem solved!
As Pattern and Bug, the ever-so-friendly AI assistant, catch fire, users everywhere begin outsourcing major life decisions to Danny’s algorithms. But as Danny reckons with his newfound success, Eve—whose career relies on her ability to write her emotions into song—grows increasingly skeptical of the app’s impact on genuine connection. Their relationship becomes the ultimate modern experiment: How do you fall and stay in love in the digital age?
Joyful, generous and smart—an absolute delight moment-to-moment, full of fun and charm, but also sharp and perceptive about creative work, our dependence on technology, and some of the ways relationships can go awry.’ — Holly Gramazio, NY-Times Bestselling author of The Husbands
“Robson has crafted a compelling love story examining intimacy, vulnerability, and communication in the modern age.” —Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of Order
“Smart, funny, immensely readable, and deeply insightful about how we make art, fall in love, and connect with each other in the age of AI. With its sharp humour and delightful dialogue, Love is an Algorithm was exactly the book I needed—I tore through it.” —Else Fitzgerald, Everything Feels Like the End of the World
“A cutting satire of tech startups, New York City, and dating, this novel is necessary reading for anyone trying to figure out who they are and what they want in the era of social media. In this funny, fast-paced, and intimate tale, there might be A.I. but there’s nothing artificial about emotion.”
—Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld
“Warm, funny, emotional, propulsive and real—a beautiful love story.” —Jessica Stanley, author of Consider Yourself Kissed