Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has made its AI chatbot, Grok, available to all users on X (formerly Twitter), intensifying its competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Meta’s Meta AI, and Microsoft’s Copilot.
Previously, Grok was only accessible to subscribers of X’s higher-tier plans, X Premium and X Premium+. This expansion follows xAI’s announcement of securing $6 billion in funding from around 97 investors, raising its total funding to $12 billion since its launch in July 2023. Early investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding.
Free users are allowed to send up to 10 messages every two hours, after which they are encouraged to upgrade to a paid subscription. They can also analyze three images per day.
In August, xAI introduced Grok-2, which featured image generation powered by Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.1 model. This version offered advanced text and image capabilities and integrated real-time information from the X platform. An image understanding feature was added to Grok in October.
xAI describes Grok as an AI assistant with a “twist of humor and a dash of rebellion,” inspired by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Iron Man’s JARVIS. The company claims Grok provides witty, insightful answers and handles “spicy” questions that other AI systems typically avoid.
