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X’s AI chatbot Grok is now available to all X users, not just paying Premium subscribers to Elon Musk’s social network.
There are still plenty of limitations, however. Free users in the US can only analyze 10 messages every 2 hours, including images, and can only analyze up to three images per day, according to users on X. You’ll need to put down $8 a month or $84 a year for X Premium (or $16 a month or $168 a year for Premium Plus) if you want to use Grok any more than this.
The move was first spotted by The Verge, which points to X users who noticed the change. Though not officially confirmed by X, many users on the platform report that usage limits and functionality seem to differ depending on what country you're logging in from, meaning the above numbers may only be valid for users in the US.
The recent move shouldn't come as that much of a surprise; TechCrunch reported last month that X was testing free versions of Grok in regions like New Zealand.
The news comes as xAI, the start-up that develops Grok, has big things planned. It recently secured another $6 billion in funding, according to recent SEC filings, and The Wall Street Journal reported last month that xAI plans to eventually roll out a standalone consumer app to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. The Memphis supercomputer powering Grok, meanwhile, is eyeing a huge expansion from 200,000 to 1 million GPUs.
Grok has seen plenty of controversy in its relatively short history. It was widely condemned for spreading false news stories about major world events, such as claiming in April 2024 that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost an election before it even happened. Mashable reported that same month that Grok, which produces AI summaries of news stories that are trending on Twitter, falsely reported that Iran had hit Tel Aviv "with heavy missiles."
Loosening restrictions on Grok comes as X has seen many people defect to rival platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, in part because of Musk's vocal backing of Donald Trump.