By Vikas SN
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI is extending its AI chatbot Grok to India and 46 other countries including Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore, in less than a week after it was made available in the United States.
The chatbot is currently available to subscribers of X Premium+, the top subscription tier of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. On December 8, X said that the chatbot is being rolled out in a phased manner, granting early access to longstanding subscribers across web, iOS and Android.
“Grok is now gracing the world in even more countries, spreading knowledge and laughter far and wide. The future is looking brighter already!” said X CEO Linda Yaccarino in a post.
X had introduced Premium+ tier in October 2023 for a monthly fee of $16, providing users with an ad-free experience across the algorithmic ‘For You’ and the chronological ‘Following’ feeds on the platform along with a range of benefits including the ability to edit tweets, post longer text or video, and ad revenue sharing among others.
In India, Premium+ tier is available at Rs 1,300 per month on the web or Rs 2,150 per month on mobile apps.
Grok is the first product from xAI, which Musk says presents a significant challenge to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It was first announced on November 4, 2023 and is powered by an AI model called Grok-1. It’s worth noting that Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI when it started as a non-profit firm in 2015. He stepped down from the company’s board in 2018.
At the time of launch, xAI said the chatbot has access to real-time information from X, thereby ensuring that its knowledge is up-to-date and relevant. In contrast, ChatGPT and Google’s Bard aggregates information from various public sources including web content, books and Wikipedia.
Another key differentiator is that Grok has a “rebellious streak” modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and answers questions with a “bit of wit”, the company said at the time of launch in November 2023.
“It will also answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems” it said.
Last week, xAI filed with the US securities regulator to raise up to $1 billion in an equity offering. The company has raised $134.7 million in equity financing until now, as per the filings.
The rollout also comes amidst X owner Elon Musk’s ongoing push to diversify the company’s income streams by growing its subscription revenue and reducing reliance on advertising which currently makes up for most of X’s revenue but has taken a major hit in the past year.
X generated advertising revenue of $600 million in each of the first three quarters of the year, as compared to more than $1 billion every quarter in 2022, as per a Bloomberg report. The total ad sales were projected to fall to about $2.5 billion in 2023, it said.