X brings Grok to all paying subscribers

The company formerly known as Twitter will soon bring its AI chatbot Grok to more paying subscribers, its owner said.

This comes after the billionaire-owned AI startup xAI moved to open source its AI chatbot Grok earlier in March.

And inManifesto Via Ex, Musk announced that Grok will become available to Premium subscribers this week, not just Premium+ subscribers, as before.

Musk also posted a video tutorial on how to post a conversation with a chatbot directly via X.

The move signals a desire to compete directly with other popular chatbots, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude.

This could also be an indication that X is trying to increase its subscriber numbers. The news arrives at a time when data indicates a decline in the number of people using X, and the platform is struggling to retain those who use it.

According to recent data released in February from Sensor Tower, X usage in the US is down 18 percent annually, while usage is down 23 percent since Musk's acquisition.

Musk's war on advertisers may also have hurt the company's revenue outlook, as Sensor Tower found that a very large number of the top US advertisers via X were no longer spending their advertising budget on the platform.

Providing access to an AI chatbot will likely prevent platform users from leaving it for other platforms, such as decentralized BlueSky platforms, or centralized Threads platforms.

Threads has gained a large number of users thanks to its meta resources, making it reach more than 130 million users per month.

Musk did not say when Grok might become available to X users, though he did mention that it will only be available to all Premium subscribers sometime this week.

Premium is available for $8 per month or $84 per year, and Grok was previously only available to Premium + subscribers, which was priced at $16 per month or $168 per year.

Grok may attract heavy users because it answers questions about topics typically off-limits to other chatbots, such as conspiracies or controversial political ideas.

Grok has access to real-time X data, something competing chatbots don't offer.

Grok

X

Elon Musk

artificial intelligence