OpenAI, Gemini, Claude – all of them have their own apps. Elon Musk’s XAi (and Grok) though doesn’t, and it seems it wants to make up for it. Musk’s AI startup, according to WSJ, is gearing up to unveil its first consumer-facing product: a standalone consumer chatbot app. The app, which is expected to operate similarly to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will provide users with access to Grok, xAI’s proprietary chatbot, directly from their personal devices.
If the app eventually rolls out, then it will enter a crowded market dominated by well-established players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, all of which offer consumer-ready AI tools. While Grok has so far been accessible only to Premium (and Premium Plus) subscribers of X (formerly Twitter), the app’s release could make the chatbot available to a broader user base, which could potentially be for free. Take the news with a pinch of salt for now, though, since this development is yet to be officially confirmed. For now, a free version of Grok is being tested in select regions, including New Zealand, wherein users can make a limited number of queries every two hours, and the accounts need to be at least seven days old, amongst other things.
The rollout of the consumer app could happen as soon as December and will challenge OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, each of which has carved out significant user bases with user-friendly interfaces and free or subscription-based models. According to reports, xAI is developing advanced large language models (LLMs) alongside the app, which are being bolstered by xAI’s access to exclusive datasets from Musk’s other ventures, such as Tesla and X.
Currently, xAI operates a supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee, equipped with over 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, and Musk has indicated plans to double this capacity in the near future. This supports the development of xAI’s LLMs, including Grok-beta, which can handle prompts with up to 128,000 tokens and execute tasks across various applications.
The release of xAI’s chatbot app is anticipated to follow the closure of its next funding round, which could raise as much as $5 billion. This would elevate the company’s valuation to $50 billion, double its worth just six months ago. Notably, Musk has rewarded investors who supported his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter by offering them shares in xAI, reportedly granting them up to 25% ownership, in a bid to offset the financial challenges faced by Twitter’s transformation into X. Key backers of xAI include the likes of Fidelity, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Twitter (now X) founder Jack Dorsey, and the firm itself is on track to exceed $100 million in annual revenue – mostly from collaborations with Musk’s other ventures, such as Starlink and X.
