A Chat with AJ Balance, Chief Product Officer at Grindr

Tell us about how you started working at Grindr

 

I joined Grindr as Chief Product Officer in December 2021. Before that, I led the Driving product team at Uber, co-founded and served as CEO of Dispatcher Inc., and held product and strategy roles at Gigwalk and The Walt Disney Company. I earned both my undergraduate and MBA degrees from Stanford University.

I came to Grindr because I love the product. I’ve been a user for over a decade, and it played a key role in my coming out journey and in building the friendships and community that have shaped my life. I first started using the app when I moved to Los Angeles after college, right as I was discovering the real-world gayborhood of West Hollywood. It was the first time I was surrounded by people like me, and Grindr helped me find connections — from lifelong friends in San Francisco to neighbours during the pandemic to people I met while traveling abroad.

To now be helping shape that experience for millions of users around the world is incredibly meaningful. Grindr is a product I know intimately, a platform I care deeply about, and one that still has enormous untapped potential.

I also come from an entrepreneurial family and love building businesses that matter. My dad was a lifelong entrepreneur and CEO. He and my mom started many businesses together. I worked at them growing up, had a deep belief in the American dream, and always aspired to build my own. After my time founding Dispatcher which led me to Uber – I was excited to explore something new.

The opportunity to lead Product at Grindr, a mission-driven company with a passionate team, a global user base, and a bold vision to build the Global Gayborhood, is the most fulfilling work I’ve done. It is a privilege to help grow something that has such a meaningful impact on the world.

 

 

How do you think Grindr has evolved over the last few years?

 

Grindr has undergone a fundamental transformation. Not just in terms of features, but in how we understand our role in queer life and culture, and how seriously we take the responsibility that comes with it.

In 2023, we launched a new mission: to become the Global Gayborhood in Your Pocket. That vision reflected how people were already using Grindr, not only for casual encounters, but to find friends, fall in love, explore identity, ask for help, and build community. Since then, every part of the company – product, engineering, brand, and social impact – has been focused on delivering against that reality.

We rebuilt our core infrastructure, including a complete overhaul of our chat system – Grindr’s most complex technical launch in a decade. We introduced Roam, now used by one in four active users, to help people connect before they arrive in a new city. We launched Right Now to create space for more immediate, intent-driven connection. And we began rolling out AI tools like Wingman and A-List, which help users manage conversations, reconnect with people they’ve talked to before, and facilitate better connections.

At the same time, we expanded our reach and cultural relevance through original content, regional channels, and real-world events. We’ve deepened our impact through Grindr for Equality, which has now distributed over 450,000 free HIV self-test kits globally.

Grindr today is a product, a platform, and a public square. We’re still about immediacy and simplicity but the context has evolved. We now see sexuality, safety, culture, and connection as part of the same experience. And my team’s job is to build for all of it.

 

 

What sets Grindr apart from other dating apps on the market?

 

Grindr wasn’t built to replicate the mainstream dating app formula, it was built to serve a global LGBTQ+ community that had never been prioritized by tech before. Founded in 2009, we were the first location-based dating app, and we remain the most widely used queer social platform in the world. That reach makes us more than an app: we’re often the first, and sometimes only, safe space for LGBTQ+ people to connect, including in places where being gay is still criminalized.

What makes Grindr unique is that we’ve never shied away from the realities of our users’ experience. While many platforms generalize or sanitize, we’ve leaned into the immediacy, the sexuality, and the culture that define this community. But we’ve also evolved. Today, Grindr is a place for people to meet, but also to learn, explore identity, make friends, and access vital resources.

We’ve invested in features that reflect that breadth: Roam supports pre-travel connection in other cities; Right Now powers real-time intent; Wingman and A-List use AI to help users navigate conversations more meaningfully. We’re not using AI to replace human connection, we’re using it to make real-world connection easier, smarter, and more intentional.

At its core, Grindr is designed for people who haven’t always seen themselves reflected in mainstream tech.

 

Tell us about AI Wingman and other new products Grindr is working on.

 

Wingman is one of the most innovative features we’ve introduced not just for Grindr, but for dating apps more broadly. It’s part of a strategy to bring personalization and intelligence to your connection, while staying rooted in privacy and safety.

Wingman is currently in beta with around 10,000 users. It’s designed to help people navigate the most complex part of online dating: managing conversations, remembering who you’ve clicked with, and keeping momentum going. Eventually, Wingman will evolve from assistant to agent, recommending date spots, making plans, and even chatting with other Wingmen before you do, so you’re walking into dates with more context and confidence.

One of the first features to emerge from this work is A-List, our AI-powered “little black book.” A-List helps users rediscover promising connections from their inbox. It generates smart chat summaries that highlight the most important details of a conversation, making it easy to pick things back up, reconnect, and meet up. It also includes smart filters like “Met Up” and “Missed Connections,” so users can focus on what really matters.

All of this is built on Grindr’s infrastructure through AWS. Our platform is hosted on Amazon Bedrock, which allows us to securely deploy multiple language models – including Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama, and Amazon’s Nova – with best-in-class data governance, safety guardrails, and scalability. We’re not building AI features for novelty but to make connection easier and more intentional.

 

Do you think there’s still significant demand for modern dating apps?

 

Yes. But what people want from dating apps is evolving, and Grindr is evolving with them.

A recent Forbes study found that 79% of Gen Z users are experiencing dating fatigue, and we get it. Endless swiping without real connection isn’t working anymore. People want deeper, more intentional ways to engage, whether that be romantic, sexual, social, or cultural.

We see that shift reflected on Grindr, and we’re building to meet it. Our intention-based features and original content are designed to support the full spectrum of queer connection. Roam helps people connect before they travel. Right Now supports real-time intimacy. AI tools like A-List and Wingman help users pick up where conversations left off. Content like Daddy Lessons and Host or Travel adds context, culture, and community to the platform.

The demand for connection hasn’t gone away, but the expectations have changed. Grindr isn’t just keeping up with that shift. We’re helping lead it.

 

What can we hope to see from Grindr in the future?

 

We’re focused on building technology that reflects people’s real lives. That’s always been our foundation. We listen closely to how people are actually using the platform and respond with thoughtful, relevant features that support connection, expression, and safety.

Looking ahead, we’re doubling down on discovery, connection, and culture. Our 2025 roadmap is the most ambitious in Grindr’s history. We’re scaling intention-based features and introducing new tools that help users connect whether at home, traveling, or still exploring their identity. AI will play a bigger role, but not as a replacement for human interaction.

Ultimately, we’re not chasing trends. We’re building the Global Gayborhood in Your Pocket. Grindr is becoming more than a product, it is infrastructure for connection at scale.