Free Access to X’s Chatbot Grok Now Available
X has announced that its AI chatbot Grok is now accessible to all users, not just those who subscribe to the Premium tier of Elon Musk’s social network. While this is exciting news, there are still some limitations to keep in mind.
For free users in the US, analyzing messages is limited to 10 every 2 hours, including images, and only up to three images can be analyzed per day based on reports from X users. If you want more access to Grok, you’ll need to consider subscribing to X Premium for $8 per month or $84 per year (or $16 per month or $168 per year for Premium Plus).
Although X has not officially confirmed this change, many users have observed variations in usage limits and functionality based on the country you are accessing the platform from. It’s possible that the numbers reported above are specific to users in the US.
Recent reports suggest that X has been experimenting with free versions of Grok in countries like New Zealand. This move aligns with xAI, the start-up behind Grok, securing an additional $6 billion in funding according to recent SEC filings. There are plans for xAI to launch a standalone consumer app to compete with other industry players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
In terms of technology, the Memphis supercomputer that powers Grok is looking to scale up significantly from 200,000 to 1 million GPUs. Despite its advancements, Grok has faced criticism for spreading misleading news stories about significant global events. For instance, there were inaccuracies reported about the Indian Prime Minister losing an election before it took place and false claims about Iran attacking Tel Aviv with heavy missiles.
With loosened restrictions on Grok, X is hoping to retain users, as some have migrated to alternative platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads due in part to Musk’s support of Donald Trump.
