Slaven Vlasic
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI began rolling out its generative AI chatbot, Grok, to some users of the X social network on Thursday.
Grok will be available to X Premium Plus users, or those who pay $16 a month (or $22 in app). The generative AI chatbot was unveiled last month and has real-time access to information through the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform.
On Thursday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted about bringing Grok to a wider audience.
News of the wider release was first reported by Gizmodo.
In November, Musk said Grok was “designed to have a little more humor in its responses.” It was initially being tested among a limited group of verified users in the U.S. to improve its capabilities before a wider release.
ChatGPT, which competes with Grok, and is run by OpenAI, also has access to real-time information via the internet. Initially, ChatGPT only had access to information as of September 2021.
OpenAI is backed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which made a “multi-billion” dollar investment in January.
News of the wider release for Grok comes just days after xAI filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was looking to raise up to $1B in equity. The Musk-led xAI has raised $134.7M in equity financing, according to the regulatory filing, which listed the minimum investment accepted by any outside investor as $2M.
Musk, however, said on Wednesday that xAI was not raising money “right now.”