X launches its ChatGPT rival: Grok

X is rolling out its ChatGPT rival, Grok, to Premium+ subscribers.

Grok was developed by xAI, the artificial intelligence venture founded by Elon Musk in July 2023. It is available to users in the U.S. Availability in other countries is expected soon.

Why we care. Generative AI is now a crucial tool for SEO and PPC marketers. Industry experts have so far given positive feedback regarding Grok, praising the chatbot for its superior intelligence and creativity compared to other models. Marketers should consider incorporating Grok into their work to explore potential benefits.

Accessibility. Not all U.S. Premium+ subscribers have access to Grok. The rollout prioritizes longer-term subscribers, granting them access sooner, according to an X post. All X users are expected to have access by the end of next week.

If you are on mobile and can’t see Grok, X advises making sure you update and restart the app before assuming you don’t have access.

Getting started. You can find Grok in the X side menu on the web, iOS, and Android. The chatbot can also be added to the bottom menu on the X app for easy access.

How it works. Grok is a conversational chatbot that works like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. It is powered by a LLM called Grok-1, which contains web data from as recent as Q3 2023, as well input from human assistants.

Why it’s different. Grok ingests real-time data from X and incorporates it into responses. For example, if you were to ask “What is trending in the news today?”, ChatGPT would not be able to answer. Grok, however, would be able to answer the question.

According to xAI:

• “Grok is an AI modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask.”
• “Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor.”

Reactions. The response to Grok so far seems to be positive with some predicting it could potentially “win the Chat AI war.” Former Googler and CEO of Abacus.AI, Bindu Reddy, wrote on X:

• “Grok – First Impressions…”
• “- 3.5 class model.”
• “- missing ChatGPT’s bells and whistles.”
• “- makes up by being spicy af.”
• “- Twitter’s real-time feed is a huge advantage.”
• “Definitely has a lot of novelty value. If Elon can quickly improve it to have lasting value, it could win the Chat AI war. Underscores the fact that winning the Chat AI commercial market vs winning the AGI race can be mutually exclusive TLDR: Grok is nowhere near GPT-4 quality but still has a good shot at being a significant player in the Chat AI market.”
• “Jokes and foul language apart, Grok’s responses are so entertaining because it sounds way more intelligent than the other ChatLLM apps Fundamentally, the safety RLHF makes the other LLMs dumber… You are killing off part of the LLM brain by overly censoring it.

Digital marketer, Edward Sturm, also gave his verdict on X:

• “Grok is insane. I’m finding so many brilliant insights and comments THAT JUST YESTERDAY were difficult to find.”
• “Grok is a dramatic level-up in knowledge. It shows Tweets that are hard to find with normal Twitter Search. Tweets that contain info that ChatGPT will not tell you. For creative marketing strategies, this is a game changer. growthhacking #seo #marketingsecrets #startups. “

Next steps. Grok works only with text for now. It doesn’t understand images or videos, unlike Bard. xAI plans to add support for processing video, audio, and other types of content in the future.

What X is saying. Describing Grok on his X account, Musk said:

• “xAI’s Grok system is designed to have a little humor in its responses.”
• “Grok has real-time access to info via the 𝕏 platform, which is a massive advantage over other models. It’s also based & loves sarcasm. I have no idea who could have guided it this way.”

Deep dive. Read our LLM optimization guide for information on how to influence generative AI outputs.