Elon Musk says all Premium subscribers on X will gain access to AI chatbot Grok this week

Following Elon Musk’s xAI’s switch to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X proprietor on Tuesday talked about that the company beforehand commonly known as Twitter will rapidly present the Grok chatbot to additional paying subscribers. In a post on X, Musk launched Grok will flip into accessible to Premium subscribers this week, not merely these on the higher-end tier, Premium+, as sooner than.

The switch would possibly signal a have to compete additional straight with completely different in type chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude. However it might be an indication that X is trying to bump up its subscriber figures. The knowledge arrives at a time when info signifies that fewer people are using the X platform, and it’s struggling to retain these which can be. According to present info from Sensor Tower, reported by NBC News, X utilization throughout the U.S. was down 18% year-over-year as of February, and down 23% since Musk’s acquisition.

Musk’s war on advertisers might need moreover hurt the company’s earnings prospects, as Sensor Tower found that 75 out of the very best 100 U.S. advertisers on X from October 2022 no longer spent advert funds on the platform.

Offering entry to an AI chatbot would possibly doubtlessly forestall X prospects from fleeing to completely different platforms — like decentralized platforms Mastodon and Bluesky, or Instagram’s Threads, which rapidly gained traction due to Meta’s sources to realize over 130 million monthly users as of the fourth quarter 2023.

Musk didn’t say when Grok would flip into accessible to X prospects, solely that it “may very well be enabled” for all Premium subscribers sometime “later this week.”

X Premium is the company’s mid-tier subscription starting at $8 month-to-month (on the web) or $84 per yr. Beforehand, Grok was solely accessible to Premium+ subscribers, at $16 month-to-month or a hefty $168 per yr.

Grok’s chatbot would possibly enchantment to Musk’s followers and heavy X prospects because it’ll reply to questions on topics which is perhaps typically off-limits to other AI chatbots, like conspiracies or additional controversial political ideas. It might moreover reply questions with “a rebellious streak,” as Musk has described it. Most notably, Grok has the facility to entry real-time X info — one factor rivals can’t present.

In any case, the price of that info beneath Musk’s reign may be diminishing if X is shedding prospects.