Elon Musk-owned xAI has announced that the latest version of its Grok series of AI models is now available to all users for free.
The expanded access to Grok 4 comes roughly a month after its release. It was initially only accessible to members of the company’s SuperGrok and X Premium subscription plans. “For a limited time, we are rolling out generous usage limits so you can explore Grok 4’s full potential,” xAI said in a post on social media platform X on Sunday, August 10.
Free access to Grok 4 is applicable for all users globally. Note, access to Grok 4 Heavy, which is said to be xAI’s most capable variant of the AI model, is still limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers.
The move by xAI indicates it is looking to reach more users while keeping premium features and capabilities locked behind a subscription wall. It also comes just days after OpenAI introduced its latest major AI model called GPT-5, which is also freely accessible to all users worldwide.
Grok 4 has two modes, namely: Auto and Expert. In auto mode, the AI model will automatically determine whether a prompt submitted by a user requires a more detailed and elaborate response based on higher reasoning. It is said to be faster and reduces consumption of compute power as well as other resources.
Expert mode, on the other hand, allows users to manually switch Grok 4 to reasoning mode if they are not satisfied with the initial AI-generated response.
Last week, xAI also made an AI video generation feature called Grok Imagine available at no cost to all users located in the United States. Paid subscribers outside the US are eligible for higher request limits across all features.
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The Grok Imagine feature stirred controversy within days of its roll-out. Several users found that the AI feature can be used to generate explicit videos of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Sydney Sweeney, according to a report by BBC.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk recently unveiled plans to roll out ads directly within the Grok chatbot interface. Speaking in a recent X Spaces discussion, he said that additional revenue streams were necessary to cover the cost of the “expensive” GPUs that are used to power the AI models.
Musk further said that the ads would appear in-between answers and suggestions on both the Grok AI chatbot website as well as the mobile app.
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