Elon Musk’s xAI, the AI company at the heart of his vast tech empire, may be facing a rising tide of legal battles with OpenAI, but it isn’t slowing down on innovation. On a Friday night that typically sees the release of new tech products, xAI introduced two game-changing updates for its flagship Grok chatbot model—a faster, more efficient version and a brand-new tool dubbed the “Grok Button.”
The Grok 2 upgrade promises a significant leap in performance. xAI claims the new model is three times faster than its predecessor, boasting improved accuracy, better instruction-following, and enhanced multilingual capabilities. This means Grok, which serves as the backbone of X’s chatbot experience, can now respond more swiftly and intelligently, processing queries with greater nuance across languages. However, access remains restricted for free users, who are limited to just 10 questions every two hours. Premium and Premium+ subscribers, on the other hand, enjoy higher usage limits, giving them more flexibility in their interactions.
In addition to this technical leap, xAI rolled out the “Grok Button” on X— a new feature designed to deepen users’ engagement with content on the platform. According to the company, the button allows users to discover relevant context, understand real-time events, and explore trending discussions in greater depth. Whether it’s for following breaking news or diving into detailed analyses, this tool positions Grok as not just a chatbot but a key component in navigating the dynamic social media landscape.
For developers and businesses, xAI has also released upgraded Grok models via its API, emphasizing better efficiency and multilingual performance. These changes translate into reduced pricing for API usage, from $5 per million input tokens (around 750,000 words) to just $2 per million input tokens, and $15 to $10 per million output tokens. This shift marks a significant cost-saving initiative for users integrating Grok into their platforms.
Looking ahead, xAI is poised to enhance its offerings further with Aurora, an image generation model currently available in Grok’s chatbot experience. Aurora, expected to launch in the API soon, is notable for its unfiltered, creative outputs, pushing the boundaries of visual AI.
Despite its ongoing challenges, xAI’s latest updates signal the company’s continued push to redefine how users interact with both AI and social media.
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