Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup has released Grok 2, the second version of its AI-powered assistant, as a standalone app for iOS.
It adds various features such as image generation and fact-checking, and comes with a tiered subscription model that provides advanced features for paid users.
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Grok 2 now allows users to access X (formerly Twitter) without requiring a subscription. This marks a shift from the original plan of integrating within social media platforms.
Users can now sign in using email, Apple ID, or other supported login options.
The move is aimed at competing with rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Meta AI, and Claude.ai.
Grok was initially released in November 2023 as a chatbot with a unique personality that offers sarcastic and humorous experiences.
Initially, it was only available to X subscribers. However, in December 2024, a free version with limitations such as being able to only make up to 10 inquiries per day was announced.
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What Grok can do
1) Image Generation: Grok’s integration with FLUX, an open source AI image generator, allows you to create the most surreal images. However, that ability is controlled to avoid producing explicit content.
2) Real-time search: Grok AI is itself a huge database and can access real-time information about X, one of the top news sources. You can also search a wide range of products and services
3) Brainstorming: Grok can now generate ideas and support creativity.
4) Normal mode and Fun mode: Normal mode gives you honest answers, while Fun mode, added in March 2024, adds a layer of irony and humor to your answers.
5) Fact-checking and summarizing: Grok allows users to fact-check tweets and summarize news by simply pasting a URL and prompting.
6) Next token prediction: Grok uses a next token prediction model that helps predict and generate the most likely response in a conversation.
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