Elon Musk’s xAI offers Grok-2 chatbot free to all X users

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, announced on Saturday that the latest version of its Grok-2 chatbot is now available for free to all users of the social media platform X.

Premium and Premium+ subscribers, however, will still enjoy higher usage limits and priority access to new features, xAI confirmed. The company has been testing this updated model over recent weeks.

What can Grok-2 do?

In a detailed blog post, xAI outlined the expanded capabilities of Grok-2:

• Search results and citations: Grok leverages the X platform to understand real-time global events. It now includes web search and citation features, allowing users to access posts from X alongside broader internet sources. “We also added citations so you can dive deeper into sources or verify information provided by Grok,” the company explained.

• Creative image generation with aurora: The chatbot has improved creative photo and meme generation through its Aurora model, offering enhanced photorealism. Users can now generate reimagined versions of themselves based on their X profile using the new “draw me” feature. Clicking on someone else’s “draw me” post allows others to try it out themselves.

• Contextual analysis: A new “Grok” button will soon appear on posts across users' timelines, helping them gain deeper insights, discover relevant context, and follow real-time discussions.

Wider rollout of Grok AI

This free rollout comes after xAI had reportedly tested Grok’s free version in specific regions last month. Originally launched last year as a witty AI assistant, Grok was previously accessible only to Premium users.

Now available to a broader audience, Grok enters a competitive space alongside AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Anthropic's Claude.

The new features mark xAI’s continued efforts to position itself as a leader in AI technology while expanding its user base on Musk’s X platform.