Grindr’s Big AI Update: New Features Coming In 2025

By Oliver Green


Just what everyone asked for: artificial intelligence in your hookup app. Grindr’s latest announcement promises to AI-ify everything in 2025 – because apparently, that’s what we were all missing from our late-night browsing sessions.

To be fair, some of the features actually sound useful. Imagine never having to awkwardly ask “wait, what did we talk about?” when that cute guy from last month messages you.

Or landing in a new city and instantly knowing which neighborhoods are actually worth exploring. The app’s even promising an AI wingman to help craft your profile, which might be handy for those of us who still use “hey” as an opening line.

Let’s be real: Grindr is messy. It’s where millions of gay men go to find everything from hookups to happiness, validation to harassment.

With 14.5 million monthly users worldwide, it’s basically become gay infrastructure at this point. Some of us love it, some of us delete it every Sunday morning, but most of us keep coming back.

Grindr on phone near heart

Now, the app wants to sprinkle some AI magic into your dating life. But like most of Grindr’s recent updates, many of these shiny new features will likely end up behind a paywall after their free trials.

Here’s what’s coming in 2025:

New AI Personalization Features

Chat Summaries

If you’re juggling multiple conversations (and who isn’t?), Grindr’s new AI Wingman assistant promises to be your digital memory.

The feature will analyze your chats and create quick summaries of your conversations, helping you remember important details about potential matches.

Grindr chat summaries

Did that cute guy mention he’s a dog person? Or that he’s only in town for the weekend? The AI will keep track of these details so you don’t have to scroll through endless messages to find them.

Grindr plans to offer five free summaries to let users test the feature before asking them to subscribe.

A-List

Think of this as your personal “best of” collection, but chosen by AI instead of your tipsy 2 AM self.

Grindr A-List

The feature automatically identifies your most promising connections based on your chat history and interaction patterns. It looks for meaningful conversations and what Grindr calls “high-potential matches,” then organizes them in one easy-to-access list.

The goal is to help you reconnect with promising matches that might otherwise get lost in the endless scroll of profiles. It can even filter your connections by “Met Up” and “Missed Connections” – though how exactly it determines these categories hasn’t been explained.

For You

Grindr’s taking a page from TikTok’s playbook with this one. The “For You” feature uses machine learning to serve up daily recommendations of profiles that might match your preferences and intentions.

Rather than just showing you every available profile in your area, it promises to get smarter about suggesting compatible matches.

If someone doesn’t catch your interest, you can pass on them, and the system will use that information to improve future recommendations.

Grindr for you pass profile

Grindr says this will mean “less time scrolling and more time making meaningful connections” – though we’ve heard that promise before.

Discover

While local connections are Grindr’s bread and butter, the new Discover feature expands your options globally.

It’s designed to help you browse and connect with profiles from around the world, with AI-powered recommendations based on your interests and preferences.

Grindr Discover

The company describes it as a “browsing experience designed to arouse the senses” with a “media-rich” interface.

Unlike the regular grid, Discover will let you explore profiles regardless of location, which could be particularly useful for people planning future travels or those open to long-distance connections.

New Travel & Explore Features

Explore Heatmap

Ever landed in a new city and wondered where all the gays actually hang out? Grindr’s new Explore Heatmap aims to solve that eternal question.

Grindr explore heatmap

The feature displays the density of Grindr users across different neighborhoods, helping you identify the most active areas in any city.

While Grindr says it’s “designed with privacy in mind,” they haven’t specified exactly how they’ll protect user location data. Still, it could be a game-changer for travelers trying to figure out which neighborhoods to explore – or avoid.

Travel Pass

According to Grindr, 27% of their users are traveling at any given time.

The new Travel Pass bundle caters to these globe-trotting users with a combination of premium features: unlimited Roam access (letting you place your profile in other cities before arrival), boosted visibility to get more attention in new locations, a “Visitor” tag on your profile, and chat translations for international connections.

Grindr Travel Pass

It’s basically positioning itself as your ultimate gay travel companion, though pricing details haven’t been announced yet.

Last Year’s Updates Still Rolling Out

If you missed some of the new features that were introduced in 2024, with some still being tested, they include:

Right Now

Currently being tested in Washington, D.C. and Australia, Right Now is Grindr’s first explicitly intent-based feature.

It’s designed for users seeking immediate connections, making intentions clear from the start. The company plans to roll it out more widely by the end of Q2 2025, with global availability expected by year’s end.

Of course, some would say 99% of Grindr users are already looking for “Right Now” – but let’s try to be more romantic than that…

Super Boost

An enhanced version of Grindr’s regular profile boost, Super Boost puts your profile “front and center” for twice as long as a regular boost.

What makes it “super” is the ability to target your boost toward specific demographics – you can select parameters like age and position to ensure your profile is shown to users matching your interests.

It’s currently available to about half of Grindr’s users, with a full rollout planned for the second half of 2025.

Roam

Already available globally, Roam lets you place your profile in different locations before you travel there.

It’s particularly useful for planning ahead – whether you’re looking for local insights, travel tips, or setting up dates before you arrive.

While the feature is available to all users, it looks like it’ll be bundled into the new Travel Pass subscription for unlimited use.

Grindr 2024 features

Wingman

Currently in testing with 10,000 US users, Wingman is Grindr’s AI assistant that’s supposed to help you level up your game.

Beyond powering the new Chat Summaries feature, it can help craft your profile, identify potential matches based on your interests, and even suggest conversation starters.

The test group will continue growing throughout 2025, with Wingman’s capabilities expanding to power several of the new features being launched this year.

Yes, that means you won’t even have to come up with silly conversations… ehm, is that a good thing?

So What’s the Deal?

Look, AI features could genuinely make Grindr better. Imagine actually remembering what you talked about with that cute guy from last month, or finding compatible matches without endless scrolling.

But there’s an elephant in the room: Grindr keeps adding paywalls while the basic experience stays pretty much the same. Sure, they promise to keep a “robust free product,” but the good stuff is increasingly locked behind subscriptions.

Man holding grindr app on phone

Grindr CEO George Arison swears they’re not just trying to squeeze more money out of us:

“We don’t want Grindr to become some of our peer apps where they’re just focused on monetization,” he told Bloomberg. But with many new features likely heading to paid tiers after free trials, users might remain skeptical.

Will AI make finding love (or lust) easier? Maybe. Will it cost you more? Definitely. At least now when someone ghosts you, you’ll have an AI-generated summary of all the red flags you missed.