The Grok AI chatbot, which was previously to be exclusive to X's top tier Premium+ subscribers, will be available on this site instead week, it will be available to all premium subscribers.
The move is likely aimed at boosting revenue amid falling usage and advertiser churn, but it has some Premium+ subscribers wondering what exactly? they now get for their money …
X premium levels
After initially launching as a single premium subscription, X now offers three paid tiers:
- Premium Basic, $3 per month.
- Premium, $8 per month.
- Premium+, $16/month
Despite costing twice as much, Premium+ offers very little that Premium doesn't. Premium+ doesn't show ads in the For You and Following feeds, but you still see sponsored posts in other places.
This feature does not apply to Promoted Content elsewhere on X, including, but not limited to, Profile Ads, Post Reply Ads, Immersive Media Viewer Ads, Explore Promoted Events, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts you can follow.
Another top-tier exclusive feature is Articles, which allows subscribers to share long-form content on X if they can think of a reason to do so.
Grok AI chatbot
The Grok chatbot is designed to compete with ChatGPT and Claude and works on the same principle. The main difference between a bot should be its “personality”. Musk described him as having a “wit”; and “rebellious streak.”
Grok appears to have fewer safeguards than other generative AI models, meaning it may be willing to discuss riskier topics.
Access The Grok AI chatbot was supposed to be the third benefit of Premium+, but now Elon Musk has tweeted that it will be available to other paid subscribers. It's unclear if this includes Premium Basic, but it appears to be the case.
Later this week, Grok will be included for all Premium subscribers (not just Premium+)
TechCrunch suggests that Musk has made the decision to try to increase the number of paid subscriptions at a time when the company is struggling to turn a profit. Most of the platform's top advertisers have reportedly left, and the remaining ads are attracting less attention.
Use of X in the US. as of February was down 18% year-over-year and 23% since Musk's acquisition [and] Sensor Tower found that 75 of the top 100 US advertisers on X were no longer spending ad budget on the platform as of October 2022 .
9to5Mac's Take
Chatbot with less the number of security measures that he will discuss is a bolder tone, controlled by Musk and designed to increase revenues; what could go wrong?
