While the world is moving ahead with infusing AI (Artificial Intelligence) across almost every sector, especially technology, how could billionaire Elon Musk stay behind? After all, he owns one of the most influential micro-blogging sites, “X” (previously Twitter). You most likely heard of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, but you might not have heard that much about Elon Musk’s rival to it, called “Grok.” Well, Elon Musk Grok is a “Conversational AI for understanding the universe,” according to xAI’s website.

grok chatbot

Grok is available to the public, and regular users will come across the new feature often. If it’s there, it is for your use. So, in this guide, we will give you all the details that you need to know about Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot that is available on the micro-blogging site X. Besides, we will also help you with the steps on how you can use the Grok chatbot. Let’s get down to business.

What is the Grok chatbot?

Grok chatbot is an AI conversational tool developed by Elon Musk’s xAI that is touted to have a “sense of humor” and is also available with the X platform. One of the most important things that differentiates Grok chatbot when compared to ChatGPT is that while ChatGPT has restrictions on what it can answer, Grok is more rebellious and can understand human language, giving you more human-like interactions and answers to spicy questions as well.

To understand Grok’s wit, in a screenshot shared by X on the platform, one X employee asked Grok, “When is it appropriate to listen to Christmas music?” to which Grok replied, “Whenever the hell you want. If anyone tries to give you shit for it, just tell them to shove a candy cane up their ass and mind their own damn business.”

Well, this is the kind of answer I would get if I asked the same question to any of my friends. The point is that Grok is an AI chatbot with a human-like sense of humor. Some may find it vulgar, but that’s how humans behave. Of course, the sense of humor could be part of how the AI conversational tool was trained, and Elon Musk pointed out that ChatGPT is too ‘politically correct,’ which makes it not so fun to use.

As per the official xAI blog post, under the skin of the Grok chatbot is the generative AI mode Grok-1, developed over a cluster of thousands. Recently, on March 28, 2024, xAI announced the Grok-1.5, an advanced and crisper version of the Grok-1 chatbot. The Grok-1.5 chatbot comes with improved reasoning and will provide better answers with a context length of 128,000 tokens. Grok-1.5 has yet to arrive on X and will soon be available to early testers of GPUs. The data is sourced from the web and is dated up to Q3 2023. It was also trained by human assistants, what xAI calls “AI Tutors.”

grok featured image

The thing that goes in favor of the Grok chatbot is that it gets all the information in real time via the X platform. This means it stays up-to-date with whatever is going on in the world, and you can have a conversation with it regarding any hot topic. Besides answering simple to difficult questions, the Grok chatbot can also help you draft emails, give you an itinerary for your next trip, plan your fitness goals as per your needs, and much more.

In simple terms, Grok can talk to you about things that are dead ends for other chatbots. It can answer everything from current events to pop culture to anything in between.

In which countries Grok chatbot is available?

You can access Grok via the X platform only if you are a Premium+ subscriber. You can use it on your Android or iOS device or the web. Here is a list of countries where Grok is officially available for Premium+ members:

  • Australia
  • Bahamas
  • Barbados
  • Belize
  • Botswana
  • Cameroon
  • Canada
  • Dominica
  • Eswatini
  • Fiji
  • Gambia
  • Ghana
  • Grenada
  • Guyana
  • India
  • Jamaica
  • Kenya
  • Liberia
  • Malaysia
  • Malawi
  • Malta
  • Mauritius
  • Namibia
  • New Zealand
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Philippines
  • Rwanda
  • Saint Kitts & Nevis
  • Saint Lucia
  • Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
  • Samoa
  • Seychelles
  • Sierra Leone
  • Singapore
  • Solomon Islands
  • South Sudan
  • Sri Lanka
  • Tanzania
  • Tonga
  • Trinidad & Tobago
  • Tuvalu
  • Uganda
  • United States
  • Vanuatu
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe

How do I use the Grok chatbot on X?

The process of using the Grok chatbot on X is fairly simple. Here’s how you can access the Grok chatbot:

  1. Subscribe to X Premium+ membership. The pricing starts at $16/month or $168/year. X Premium+ subscription is most important for those in regions where Grok is available.x premium+ subscription
  2. After signing up for the X Premium+ membership, open X.com or the X app on your Android or iOS device.
  3. Choose Grok from the side panel on the X app or the website.grok on x side panel
  4. After you click on the Grok icon, you can choose between Fun Mode and Regular Mode. The Fun Mode is the default mode.different modes of grok chatbot on x
  5. Start typing your question and get responses from Grok.

Grok is situated on the side menu of the Android or iOS app and on the web. However, you can shift its position to the bottom menu on the X app for quicker access. Grok doesn’t have a dedicated app like ChatGPT.

Grok modes: Fun and Regular

When you click or tap on the Grok icon on the X app or website, you will find two modes, i.e., Fun Mode and Regular Mode. These modes are the ones in which Grok will reply to your queries. When you use the fun mode, which also happens to be the default mode for Grok, you get more colorful responses. The answers in Fun Mode are rather interesting. It will refer to people with respect and then go on to bend the explanation more sarcastically.

To understand Grok’s Fun Mode better, here’s the response it gave when an X user asked Grok to roast Stephen King.

On the other hand, when you use Grok’s regular mode, you will get more grounded and straightforward answers to your queries. You will get more accurate answers when using Grok in regular mode. However, one thing to note is that Grok is not 100% correct all the time. It will give you incorrect information and generate false information, especially dates and events.

Why is the chatbot called Grok?

Elon Musk hasn’t officially answered why he named the AI chatbot Grok. But it is believed that the word Grok has originated from Heinlein’s book, “Stranger in a Strange Land.” The term Grok was used by the main character of the book, a Martian who uses the word to describe a profound understanding of something. Moreover, Musk posted “Stranger in a Strange Land” on X the day after Grok was announced. So, there is something related to the book, and it seems Musk likes the word Grok.

Comparison: Grok vs ChatGPT

Now, the most obvious question that many of you might have is whether Grok is better than the popular and famous ChatGPT. Both are AI conversational tools that are aimed at providing human-like interactions using AI models and AI training. However, both take the approach differently, giving each one of them their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Let’s look at some of them:

1. Grok provides you with real-time info; ChatGPT doesn’t

If you ask Grok about the ongoing Isreal-Hamas war or the 2024 Super Bowl, it will easily give you any information related to either of the events. Since it has real-time access to data available on the X platform, you get the latest information with Grok. Speaking of ChatGPT, the free version has access to information up to October 2022, while the paid version has information up to April 2023. So, if you are looking for recent events, Grok is the AI tool you should opt for. Keep in mind that due to the false information available on X, Grok is found to produce contradictory and inaccurate information about current events.

2. Grok keeps it calm and cool; ChatGPT tends to be politically correct

Some say that Grok’s responses are similar to how Musk would respond. As Musk’s answers tend to be unapologetic and filter-less, Grok also gives you answers sarcastically and funnily. Don’t believe us? Ask Grok to roast you. Grok doesn’t shy away from touching taboo topics and doesn’t hold any weight as being politically correct. ChatGPT, conversely, doesn’t touch upon topics that could trigger outrage among users and is termed violent or disrespectful.

3. Grok is a better student than ChatGPT

According to the data posted by xAI, Grok performed significantly better than its fellow AI chatbots when it came to computing class, surpassing the likes of ChatGPT-3.5 and Inflection-1. It was only topped by models that were trained with a large amount of data, like GPT-4.

4. ChatGPT processes images, Grok misses out

GPT-4 is multimodal, allowing it to process both text and images. This means if you want to know about someone’s clothes in a photo, GPT-4 can do that. Grok, as of now, only accepts text, but xAI has already coined that Grok will support visual and audio capabilities in the future.

5. ChatGPT is free; Grok costs you money

You can use the basic version of ChatGPT for free. But, to use Grok, you need to purchase the X Premium+ membership. So, if you are okay with general questions and answers or getting help from AI to create content or get ideas, then ChatGPT should be your choice. In case you don’t bother spending money, be my guest! Go for Grok.

FAQs about the Grok chatbot

1. Is the Grok chatbot available?

Yes. Finally, after multiple months of testing, Grok was made available to the public on the X platform. But to use it, X users need to have the Premium+ membership, which costs $16 a month.

2. Is Grok better than ChatGPT?

As per the benchmark comparison, Grok-1 performed better compared to the free version of ChatGPT-3.5. Moreover, there is a newer version of Grok, Grok-1.5, which was recently announced. The benchmark result for that is for it to go official.

3. How does Grok perform as compared to Bard?

Bard is better at giving you responses to current events than ChatGPT or even Grok. This is because Grok is limited to X’s data, which tends to be false. Here’s what Bard had to say when an X user asked the AI chatbot about Grok:

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