Following Elon Musk’s bold move to open source its Grok large language model in March, the owner of X announced on Tuesday that the company, formerly known as Twitter, will be rolling out the Grok chatbot to more paying subscribers. In a post on X, Musk revealed that Grok will now be available to Premium subscribers starting this week, instead of just those on the higher-end tier, Premium+.
This decision could be indicative of X’s desire to compete more directly with other popular chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. But it could also signal an attempt to boost the company’s subscription numbers. This news comes at a time when data shows that fewer people are using the X platform, and it is struggling to retain its current user base. According to recent data from Sensor Tower, as reported by NBC News, X usage in the US has decreased by 18% year-over-year since February and by 23% since Musk’s acquisition.
Musk’s war on advertisers may have also impacted the company’s revenue potential, with Sensor Tower’s findings showing that 75 of the top 100 US advertisers on X in October 2022 have since redirected their ad budgets away from the platform.
By offering AI chatbot capabilities, X may be able to prevent its users from flocking to other platforms, such as decentralized options like Mastodon and Bluesky, or Meta’s Instagram’s Threads, which has gained immense popularity with over 130 million monthly users in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Musk didn’t specify a date for when Grok would be available to X users, only stating that it would be “enabled” for all Premium subscribers later this week.
Later this week, Grok will be enabled for all Premium subscribers, not just Premium+.
X Premium is the company’s mid-tier subscription, starting at $8 per month on the web, or $84 per year. Previously, Grok was only accessible to Premium+ subscribers, at a higher cost of $16 per month or a steep $168 per year.
Grok’s chatbot may be enticing for Musk’s supporters and avid X users as it is designed to answer questions on topics that most AI chatbots avoid, such as conspiracies and controversial political ideas. It also has a “rebellious streak,” according to Musk. What sets Grok apart from its competitors is its ability to tap into real-time X data, something that other chatbots are unable to offer.
However, the value of this data may be wavering under Musk’s leadership if X continues to lose users.
