Grindr is testing AI chat summaries for paid users
Grindr just dropped new product updates like features for faster hookups (Right Now) and to hide users from their exes (Profile Hide), and it's not stopping. The most well-known gay dating app has a long product roadmap for 2025, including AI-powered chat summaries that look a bit like Gmail's.
AI is everywhere right now, including dating apps. Tinder's incoming CEO, Spencer Rascoff, mentioned the app leaning into AI both on LinkedIn at the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything conference. At the event, Grindr CEO George Arison said much of the same, following a report in the Journal last October that stated Grindr is testing an AI "wingman."
What is Grindr's A-List?
While the full-on wingman is still in testing to 10,000 users (of Grindr's 14.5 million average monthly active users), the app is releasing AI-driven features at an increasing clip — both in beta and in full. Right Now, a feature to check who is online and available at that moment (hence "right now") has recently launched to all Grindr users.
A feature currently in beta is A-List, a short list of best matches curated by AI. A-List also includes both profile and chat summaries with "key takeaways." Users can also filter matches by Online, Met Up, and Contenders. The A-List beta is currently only available to around a quarter of Grindr's Unlimited users, the more expense paid tier on Grindr at $39.99/month (XTRA is $19.99/month.)
In an interview with Mashable, Arison said that the initial reaction to A-List has been positive. Users signing up for Unlimited and reactivating it have increased, though the Grindr CEO wouldn't say by how much.
On Reddit, however, the reaction to A-List is mostly negative, with multiple users complaining that it's "useless" and that its preceding feature — favorites — was free. Grindr reiterated to Mashable that more than 70 percent of early access users reported they found A-List useful.
Even more AI on Grindr
Another Grindr feature in beta is Discover, which lets users look at profiles from around the world (as opposed to only in their area). This, along with Travel Pass (which lets you Roam a travel destination before getting there, and boost your profile) and the Explore Heatmap (which shows gay hotspots around the world), aims to help users find others on Grindr when they travel.
For You, yet another feature on the roadmap, gives users curated match choices.
Arison hinted at other features that aren't on the extensive roadmap, too. While Right Now fits well within Grindr's reputation as a hookup app, Arison said that, according to Grindr's own surveys, people have other intentions on the app too, like trying to find a partner. In a survey last fall of 1,200 gay and bi men, Grindr found that around a quarter under 35 want to have kids.
Grindr intends to test more features (incorporating AI, of course) with these varying intentions in mind by the end of the year. It's part of Grindr's plan to be the app users spend the most time on in a sea of other options.
Last year, Mashable reported that complaints about Grindr are rising, given more paywalled features and product issues.