Every Grindr user is unique. Italian men love feet. South Koreans prefer open relationships. The highest percentage of self-proclaimed “daddies” call the US home and Switzerland is overrun with twinks. Delivered by annual trend report Grindr Unwrapped, those critical insights offer the type of information that will help usher the company into its “AI-first” era where it’s “the everything app for the gay guy,” CEO George Arison tells WIRED.

Grindr was the first to leverage geo-location tech when it burst onto the scene in 2009. Arison arrived at the company in 2022 from the world of automotive ecommerce. With him at the helm, the company has undergone “a bit of a refounding,” he says, including a major overhaul of staff—85 percent of current 160 US employees were hired in the last three years—and bigger investments in product.

All of his moves, he says, have been about building trust with users. Grindr may indeed be the most popular gay dating and hookup app in the world, but its popularity has only made it a target of controversy, including a 2024 lawsuit that alleged users’ HIV status and testing information was shared with third-party vendors and, in July, criticism for blocking users who posted the phrase “no Zionists” in their profile. Skepticism over Arison’s conservative politics probably hasn’t helped either.

Even so, Arison tells me he is laser focused on the task ahead. One that almost didn’t happen. Controlling stakeholders Raymond Zage and James Lu submitted an offer to take the company private in October. The bid—a buyout that valued the company at $3 billion—came to an anticlimactic end in November when they failed to come up with the money. The acquisition could have potentially derailed Arison’s priorities, but for now, that’s all behind him.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

JASON PARHAM: Grindr is now positioning itself as more than a place for hookups. It wants to be a social everything app—why?

GEORGE ARISON: We didn’t really have a mission before 2023. But it was always more than a hookup app because it was being used for so many different things, but no one had said, OK, this is what we want to be. This year is when we really went after the gayborhood vision. Now we are actually building features that intentionally support all these different use cases in which people are engaged in on the app.

OpenAI has quietly reversed a major change to how hundreds of millions of people use ChatGPT.

On a low-profile blog that tracks product changes, the company said that it rolled back ChatGPT’s model router—an automated system that sends complicated user questions to more advanced “reasoning” models—for users on its Free and $5-a-month Go tiers. Instead, those users will now default to GPT-5.2 Instant, the fastest and cheapest-to-serve version of OpenAI’s new model series. Free and Go users will still be able to access reasoning models, but they will have to select them manually.

The model router launched just four months ago as part of OpenAI’s push to unify the user experience with the debut of GPT-5. The feature analyzes user questions before choosing whether ChatGPT answers them with a fast-responding, cheap-to-serve AI model or a slower, more expensive reasoning AI model. Ideally, the router is supposed to direct users to OpenAI’s smartest AI models exactly when they need them. Previously, users accessed advanced systems through a confusing “model picker” menu; a feature that CEO Sam Altman said the company hates “as much as you do.”

In practice, the router seemed to send many more free users to OpenAI’s advanced reasoning models, which are more expensive for OpenAI to serve. Shortly after its launch, Altman said the router increased usage of reasoning models among free users from less than 1 percent to 7 percent. It was a costly bet aimed at improving ChatGPT’s answers, but the model router was not as widely embraced as OpenAI expected.

One source familiar with the matter tells WIRED that the router negatively affected the company’s daily active users metric. While reasoning models are widely seen as the frontier of AI performance, they can spend minutes working through complex questions at significantly higher computational cost. Most consumers don’t want to wait, even if it means getting a better answer.

Fast-responding AI models continue to dominate in general consumer chatbots, according to Chris Clark, the chief operating officer of AI inference provider OpenRouter. On these platforms, he says, the speed and tone of responses tend to be paramount.

“If somebody types something, and then you have to show thinking dots for 20 seconds, it’s just not very engaging,” says Clark. “For general AI chatbots, you’re competing with Google [Search]. Google has always focused on making Search as fast as possible; they were never like, ‘Gosh, we should get a better answer, but do it slower.’”

That meal is heavy on prep but beautifully presented for a small family. Kinda Dickensian, even. The other “festive premium” meals include a balsamic-and-fig ribeye with potatoes, brussels, and crostini; and pistachio-crusted lamb chops with mashed potatoes and green beans.

And while these meals require that you sign up for a subscription, HelloFresh doesn’t require any commitment moving forward. So you can just sign up at an introductory price and have yourself a nice little holiday by ordering three dishes. If you’ve never subscribed, this will be a handy 50 percent off, meaning you can get three meals for four people for $71, or $36 for two people, plus upcharges for the more extravagant holiday dishes. The other meals could be dinner for another day, easy prep-and-bakes for lazy post-holiday convalescence, or even add-ons for a more extravagant holiday feast. (Previous subscribers still get a discount, but not as big, about 25 percent off instead of half off.)

You may end up deciding to keep your subscription beyond the holidays. I’ve personally found that winter months in particular are a nice time to have meal kits delivered, because I shudder at the thought of entering a cold, rainy world to get grocery ingredients. Which leads me to needless upcharged $50 DoorDash meals, and self-remonstration. But especially, if you’re at home with a small family, it’s nice to have a little special meal you wouldn’t have prepared when left to your own devices. Or at least, I enjoyed my maple chicken.

A Charcuterie Board Delivery Service

Boarderie Charcuterie Board Delivery

Ships overnight, but ordering 48 hours ahead is recommended.

As a middle-aged person for whom cheese remains one of the few consistent joys, I find myself putting together a lot of charcuterie boards. For holidays, for parties at my house, for parties at others’ houses, or even just for quick dinners. Regardless of the board size, the costs can add up fast, especially once you’ve factored in frills like pickles, dried fruit, chocolate, and chutneys. To say nothing of the time outlay for slicing and arranging. Boarderie, the mail-order instant charcuterie board hyped by Shark Tank shark Lori Grenier, isn’t the least expensive option, but it is one of the most impressive.

Boards are available with custom cheese shapes (including numbers of your choice) or holiday themes, including Christmas, Jewish holidays (no meat), and New Year’s. Though they’re shipped overnight, this is via FedEx, so delays can—and often—happen, so make sure you give yourself a couple of days on the front end. I’ve had Boarderie twice now for parties, and both arrived fresh with still partially frozen ice packs—in the first case, despite sitting on my porch for half an afternoon; the second, despite a nearly day-long delay. The large size comes with 37 components, including 15 cheeses (fig-and-rose goat cheese, wasabi horseradish cheddar), four meats (black truffle salami, chorizo), five kinds of nuts, eight fruits and pickles, and three boxes of different types of crackers. There are also marmalades and candies and a disposable set of bamboo picks, spoons, and tongs.