In a competitive chatbot era, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, has made its AI chatbot Grok free for X users at no cost.
This comes as Grok was previously exclusive to only X premium subscribers. However, the free version comes with restrictions, as users can send up to 10 messages every two hours and analyze only three images daily.
Interestingly, the free version runs on the Grok-2 beta large language model, offering enhanced performance. The AI chatbot also features deep integration with the X platform, enabling users to perform tasks like analyzing posts and accounts for a tailored social media experience, making it a unique competitor in the crowded chatbot market. Not only does Grok summarize news, but it also references the tweets it pulled the data from which according to analysts gives it a huge edge over other chatbots that don’t reference news.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
Launched in 2023 to rival OpenAI ChatGPT and others, Grok has made significant strides in the AI chatbot space, as it is now set to broaden its user base. Grok Al supports Al image generation, powered by the Flux model. While its image generator has been criticized for minimal safety guardrails, it remains a standout feature.
During Grok’s initial release in November 2023, Musk claimed that Grok-1 outperformed OpenAI’s first iteration of ChatGPT in several academic tests. In August 2024, Elon Musk’s xAI launched Grok-2 AI assistant for X. Grok-2 integrates real-time information from X and applies text and vision understanding to solve complex user prompts.
With Grok-2 users have access to two modes, a regular and fun mode. While it is similar to the regular Grok model, the chatbot’s fun mode has a more distinctive personality. According to Musk, Grok offers users more interesting responses with a huge sense of humor.
In a significant move to fund the growth of Grok, the parent company Cai raised $ 6 billion as it aims for a $50 billion valuation. According to The Wall Street Journal, this signals aggressive plans for Grok enhancement and expansion. Elon Musk xAI plans to launch a standalone app for its Grok chatbot in December 2024, competing directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This move aligns with Musk’s goal of representing Grok AI as a credible product in the crowded AI marketplace.
The xAl team has been busy implementing new capabilities into Grok’s architecture, including a function-calling feature and an application programming interface (API) aimed at developers. With its advanced model and platform-specific functionality, the Grok Al chatbot is proving to be a formidable competitor to offerings from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.