For nearly two years, George Arison, the CEO of LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, has been promising to bring an “AI Wingman” to the social network’s 14.9 million monthly users.

The full wingman experience has thus far proven elusive, but alongside the company’s earnings in early August, Arison announced a plan to overhaul the company’s approach and become an AI-native company.

What, exactly, does it mean for Grindr to be AI-native? In a slide deck that accompanied Grindr’s Q2 2025 results, the company declared, “To us, AI-native means rebuilding product, architecture, and operations with intelligence embedded at every layer—not bolted on as a feature.”

When I ask Arison myself, he explains that it’s an opportunity to roll out custom-built tools for Grindr users, especially when off-the-shelf m

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