Nearly two weeks ago Elon Musk-owned ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) announced the addition of image understanding capabilities to its Grok AI model. Since its initial release on November 3, 2023, the model has been paywalled.
Now, xAI is considering opening up access to the chatbot for free users.
Grok is an AI chatbot currently only available for premium ‘X’ users. According to TechCrunch, several app researchers and users seemed to have posted about a free version of Grok for people in certain regions.
Musk’s social media company has confirmed that Grok’s free version is being tested for users in New Zealand.
Earlier yesterday (November 10, 2024), a researcher, Swakshan who goes by the name of ‘Swak’ on X shared on the social media platform that Grok will be available for free users as well but with some limitations.
“It will be available for limited locations first.”
When an ‘X’ user asked Swak to share information about the limitations, Swak said that firstly the account should be over 7 days old, it should be linked to a phone number, and the user will be able to prompt 10 “Grok 2” questions per 2 hours.
He added that the platform plans to allow 20 “Groke 2 mini” questions per 2 hours and users can analyse up to 3 images per day.
However, these limitations may vary in the future.
1. The account should be 7+ days old.
2. The account should have a phone number linked to it.
3. 10 "Grok 2" questions per 2 hours.
4. 20 " Grok 2 mini" questions per 2 hours.
5. Analyse up to 3 images per day.{ These are some I know of and might vary in the future }
— Swak (@swak_12) November 10, 2024
Paywalled Grok, the xAI chatbot for free users
xAI is likely seeking a drastically higher user base and a faster feedback cycle to review its products for further improvements and developments through the free version.
Currently, models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude or Google’s Gemini dominate the gen-AI chatbot market.
Last month, Backlinko reported that Sam Altman’s ChatGPT has 200 million weekly active users worldwide with 67.7 million active users in the US alone. While ChatGPT Plus (the paid version) has roughly 10 million subscribers.
“ChatGPT accounts for 69.9% of the market share of AI tools.”
Whereas Grok's access is limited to premium X users which is roughly around 1.3 million accounting for just 0.26% of the social media platform’s user base.
Less than two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup – xAI has been seeking new funding at a roughly $40 billion valuation months after a separate financing for the startup brought in $6 billion.
Musk aims to double xAI’s access to computing which is the driving element powering AI.
He said in a virtual appearance at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh that xAI’s facility in Memphis is already the largest such data centre.
“We already have with xAI the most powerful training cluster in the world and we are about to double it,” says Musk.
The move to open up access to Grok AI, however limited it may be for users, possibly comes from Musk’s yearning to compete with Altman’s OpenAI, which was recently valued at $157 billion.
Bloomberg stated: “Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, broke ranks with the startup and in recent years has criticised its approach to building AI.”
What is xAI?
xAI is an artificial intelligence research startup founded by Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla. The firm aims to advance scientific discovery and gain a better understanding of the universe.
xAI's founding goal is to develop advanced AI models and technologies through its AI models for both consumers and developers – Grok and PromptIDE. These models are only available to premium users of X, the Musk-owned social media platform.
