Grindr Rolled Out New Artificial Intelligence Tools. Here's How to Opt Out

Grindr users who logged into their account this weekend were greeted with an unpleasant surprise — and it wasn't an unsolicited XXX pic.

Several Grindr users reported encountering a push notification about the app’s use of artificial intelligence. The message warned users that the app would train generative AI using personal information from people on the app. The information would “help personalize the user experience and support more authentic, meaningful connections,” according to screenshots shared on social media.

App users who don’t wish to help Grindr train its generative AI, which the company has nicknamed “gAI,” which is pronounced “gay-I,” can opt using app’s settings. To get to the settings menu, first click on your own profile picture in the upper left corner of the app, and scroll down to “Settings.”

Under “Settings,” click on “Privacy Settings,” and then scroll down to “AI Technology Controls.” There will be three different AI-related prompts there, with the option to toggle each on or off.

Grindr announced its intentions to become an “AI-native” company in August, per Fast Company. “To us, AI-native means rebuilding product, architecture, and operations with intelligence embedded at every layer—not bolted on as a feature,” the company said in a slide deck obtained by Fast Company.

Grindr included many AI features as part of its 2025 Product Roadmap, including a feature called “A-List” that would highlight past connections, as well as chat summaries for paid users only.

The glut of new features coincides with growing sentiment that using the app, which launched in 2009, is an increasingly frustrating experience, marred by ads that block the ability to chat with others and a user experience that seems to thwart connection at every turn.

“It’s not a mistake,” John Voss, a product designer and the co-founder of Queer Design Club, told Them earlier this year. “Having ads gives Grindr a source of friction in the user experience that encourages people to pay for the ability to remove them.”

The frustration Grindr users feel is part of a larger trend in technology called “enshittification,” in which companies sacrifice user experience, force innovation, and shift value away from people to use the product to people who invest in the parent company.

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