Shortly after X announced its plans to test a three-tier subscription service, X owner Elon Musk teased that his new ai chatbot, xAI’s Grok, would be part of the top-tier subscription, . We’re now getting our first look at what Grok will look like when launched within the X app, courtesy of new screenshots showing the feature in development on the X website.
The ai chatbot, which is Musk’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Anthropic’s Claude and others, answers questions in conversational mode, but is said to have more personality. As theai/”> The xAI team described it., Grok is modeled after The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and is designed to respond “with a little wit” and has a “rebellious streak.” He also plans to answer “spicy” questions that are rejected by other ai systems, the company noted. Most importantly, Grok will have access to real-time knowledge through the X platform and through web browsing capabilities.
Grok was first released on November 4 to a select group of testers, but Musk announced in a post on that all X Premium+ subscribers would get access to Grok in the future. X Premium+ is one of the new subscription offerings introduced in X, alongside the existing X Premium subscription and a more affordable X Basic subscription.
While the $3 per month Basic subscription includes features like the edit button and the ability to publish longer articles and videos, it doesn’t offer ad removal and its response boosting capabilities are weaker than on X Premium. Meanwhile, the standard subscription (the $8-per-month X Premium) removes half the ads in the For You and Following feeds, plus supports all the features of Basic and adds the checkmark.
X Premium+ is the highest-priced subscription – $16 per month or $168 per year – as it removes all ads in the For You and Following feeds and introduces a Creator Hub where users can get paid for posting and offer subscriptions to his fans.
The addition of Grok at this level could also make the offering more attractive to non-creators, as X probably hopes.
Musk had not said when Grok would be released for X subscribers, but a screenshot shows that work is already underway to integrate Grok into the X app. According to the app researcher what owji, Grok was added to the X web app code yesterday and its URL will be twitter.com/i/grok. It also posted a screenshot showing how Grok will be integrated into the web app for Premium+ subscribers: The chatbot icon appears in the left-side navigation bar under Home, Search, Notifications, and Messages. The icon stands out because it is a solid black square with a white bar, while the other X icons are just outlined in black.
Non-subscribers who click the icon will see a message that says “Subscribe to Premium+ to get access to Grok,” a screenshot shows. In another, a subscriber with access to Grok will see a basic chatbot interface where they can type in a box to “Ask Grok a question.” There also appears to be a history button at the top right that would presumably allow users to revisit their previous queries.
While we already knew that Grok would be available to Premium+ subscribers in the coming months, the fact that it is already being developed on the X web app may indicate that it will be released sooner rather than later, or perhaps made available to some testers. ahead of a public debut on X.
X is not responding to requests for comment, as Musk fired his communications team shortly after acquiring the company. However, the help of documentation claims that access to Grok “is coming soon” on the Premium+ tier.
Grok’s biggest development comes shortly after a weekend of drama surrounding leading ai company OpenAI, whose board of directors unexpectedly ousted CEO Sam Altman over concerns about the pace of ai innovation and a communications failure. Altman may join OpenAI partner Microsoft to lead an ai team there, but things are still in motion.
