Can Grindr’s AI Cupid help you find love?

Grindr is joining the trend for augmenting dating apps with AI, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. Described as a virtual wingman for online dating, the AI chatbot will proactively try to link prospective romantic partners and even help plan their dates when it officially debuts.

The main idea behind Grindr’s development is to take the increasingly common AI chatbot experience, a la ChatGPT, and adapt it to a space where people are looking to connect. The chatbot would have more agency than the usually reactive chatbot, making decisions autonomously and completing tasks on behalf of users without them even asking. In the company’s vision, the chatbot will seek out potential dates for users, even messaging on their behalf, then suggest they talk and offer topics for a conversation between users. It will even be able to design a date for them that they would both enjoy and make any reservations necessary.

One of Grindr’s particular focuses is the idea of a bot-to-bot conversation between AI agents acting on behalf of different people. The idea seems to be to streamline the initial compatibility testing part of a first conversation. Instead, the AI agents would interact to determine compatibility before the people involved talk. That would theoretically cut down on dates going nowhere and could make Grindr more appealing for people burned out on bad dates.

Of course, this would entail sharing a lot of information about yourself with the AI. Considering Grindr’s users are primarily gay and bisexual men who may not be public about their sexuality or live where it is stigmatized, that’s a lot of trust to give an AI engine. Grindr claims measures to protect its…