Episode summary
Grindr Unveils New AI Features, Details Premium Membership Tier | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · 11 min · Hosts: Tim Stenovec, Carol Massar, Norah Mulinda · Guests: George Arison
Summary
Grindr’s shares fell after the company’s updated full-year outlook still came in below analysts’ expectations, even as management raised revenue to about $540 million and adjusted EBITDA to about $232 million. George Arison said the company also expects to end the year with meaningfully fewer employees than planned, driven by higher productivity from AI tools used in software development.
The larger strategic push is a new premium tier built around AI rather than simple access expansion. Arison said the company has tested monthly pricing starting at $80 and going as high as $375, and that the offering gives users AI-generated profile information, conversation summaries, and recommendations for who to engage with. He said the product is sticky and that pricing will be set to balance user count against revenue, with the new tier expected to drive growth in 2027 and 2028.
Arison also argued that AI should improve matchmaking by helping users connect across wider geographies while still leading to in-person meetings. He said Grindr is not tailoring the app specifically for Gen Z, since younger users are already engaged, and instead is focusing on older users with more disposable income. He added that Grindr remains open to acquisitions, especially in health-related areas, but is not actively pursuing deals.
Key takeaways
- George Arison said Grindr now expects about $540 million in full-year revenue and about $232 million in adjusted EBITDA, but the forecast still missed analyst estimates.
- Arison said Grindr tested a premium AI tier at $80 a month and up to $375, with AI-generated profile insights and conversation summaries as the core features.
- He said AI has boosted coding productivity by at least 2.5x, allowing Grindr to hire roughly 20 fewer engineers than planned without layoffs tied to AI.
- Arison said the premium product is aimed more at older users, whose pay rates are higher, than at Gen Z users.
- He said Grindr sees AI as a way to improve matches across broader geographies, especially outside dense markets like New York.
Notable quotes
“we have increased our productivity by minimum 2.5x uh with a team only growing 15%”
“we're going to hire roughly 20 less engineers than we had planned this year because we are getting so much productivity from the team”
“This one gives you a lot more information about the people you see”
“we've said publicly this is going to be the driver of revenue growth in 27 and 28”
“I think AI is going to be ultimately a big benefit to products like us”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. Well, shares of the LGBTQ dating app Grinder fell on Friday after the company's improved fullear revenue forecast still trailed the average analyst estimate. Company said it now expects fullear revenue to be about $540 million, up from the 535 million.
and adjusted Ibida of about 232 million up from 227 million. It also said it expects to finish the year with quote meaningfully fewer employees than we had originally planned. We've got George Harrison with us, the CEO of Grinder.
He joins us here in the Bloomberg Business Week studio. Hey George, welcome back.
Um you're about 5 months into the debut of some of these new AI features, some of these new subscription tiers that you're testing out. Can you just update us on on how that's going? — So the tests are going really well. The product features are um quite popular with users and they work really well. The product itself is very tested. We're now trying to figure out what the price should be. We've never launched anything at this price point before um that's very premium focused. Small number users will ever use this product. And so we've been iterating on what's the best way to position the product and explain it to them.
What are you thinking about right now? Well, we tested 80 bucks as the baseline price and that did very well — Annually. — No, monthly. Monthly. Wow. Yeah. Which is 2x our previous highest price point. Um we've tested prices all the way up to 375.
Um and there's a broad range uh of where we it might land. We'll see. — That is extremely premium.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- grindr ai features
- premium subscription tier
- ai personalization
- lgbtq dating
- ai safety tools
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Grindr
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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