Grindr announced second-quarter results showing strong revenue performance alongside significant progress in its artificial intelligence strategy. The dating platform reported quarterly revenue of $138 million, representing a 33% increase compared to the prior year period. The company also raised its expectations for the full year, now projecting approximately $540 million in revenue and roughly $232 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
CEO George Arison attributed the results to a comprehensive approach to deploying AI across multiple business areas. Rather than limiting AI applications to consumer-facing features, the company has integrated artificial intelligence throughout its engineering and product development operations. The strategy has yielded substantial productivity improvements, with Grindr reporting that total engineering output increased approximately 2.5 times between July 2025 and April 2026 while maintaining relatively stable engineering staff levels.
According to the company’s earnings materials, achieving equivalent output increases through traditional hiring would have required approximately 200 additional engineers and roughly $60 million in annual costs. Arison stated that the company expected to spend approximately $6 million on large language model tokens during the year, but emphasized that the productivity gains justified the investment many times over. The company has not eliminated positions due to AI adoption, instead expanding the use of coding assistants and development tools from providers including Cursor and Anthropic’s Claude.
Grindr is testing an AI-powered premium subscription tier called Edge, with pricing reaching as high as $350 per month in certain markets. The company had initially anticipated that only its highest-paying subscribers would migrate to the new tier, but early testing revealed broader adoption patterns. Subscriber data showed that users across multiple payment tiers, and even some non-subscribers, expressed interest in Edge. Arison indicated the company was satisfied with preliminary test results, though specific subscriber numbers and final pricing decisions remain undisclosed.
Operational metrics demonstrated healthy subscription dynamics, with paying users reaching 1.4 million in the second quarter, up 16% year-over-year. Average revenue per paying user increased to $25.51, reflecting a 12% improvement compared to the prior year. Notably, subscriber retention remained stronger than management expectations despite recent price increases across premium membership offerings, with churn rates coming in lower than anticipated.
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