On December 14, 2024, xAI announced that its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok would become available for free to all X users, marking a significant shift from its previous premium-only model. According to the announcement shared on X, the company has implemented specific usage limitations while introducing new capabilities.
The transition comes just one month after xAI secured $6 billion in funding, as documented in an SEC filing, bringing its total funding to $12 billion. This development follows a limited trial period that began in November 2024, when xAI first tested free access to Grok in select regions, including New Zealand.
Under the new access model, users face specific constraints on their interaction with Grok. According to xAI's official communication, free users receive 10 queries every two hours when using the Grok-2 model, while those opting for the Grok-2 mini model get 20 queries per two-hour period. The platform also implements restrictions on image-related features, allowing users to analyze three images per day and generate 10 images within each two-hour window.
The technical evolution of Grok has been marked by several significant updates throughout 2024. The platform's development timeline shows consistent advancement, beginning with the release of Grok-1.5 in March 2024, followed by the addition of vision capabilities in April. The August 2024 launch of Grok-2 introduced enhanced reasoning capabilities, accompanied by a more compact version called Grok-2 mini.
Most recently, on December 9, 2024, xAI integrated a new autoregressive image generation model, codenamed Aurora, expanding Grok's capabilities beyond text-based interactions. This feature enables users to create photorealistic images and engage in creative visual content generation directly on the X platform.
For developers and enterprise users, xAI maintains a distinct service tier through its API offerings. The company's enterprise API, launched in beta with grok-beta and grok-vision-beta, has been enhanced with the introduction of grok-2-1212 and grok-2-vision-1212 models. These newer versions provide improved accuracy and multilingual capabilities, with pricing set at $2 per million input tokens.
To access the free version of Grok, users must meet specific eligibility criteria. The platform requires accounts to be at least seven days old and have a verified phone number associated with them. This requirement aligns with X's broader strategy for user verification and platform security.
The move to a freemium model positions Grok in direct competition with other major AI chatbots in the market. Prior to this change, access to Grok was restricted to X Premium subscribers, who paid a minimum of $8 monthly or $84 annually for the service.
The development of Grok has been guided by a team with significant experience in the field of artificial intelligence. According to xAI's documentation, team members have contributed to fundamental advances in machine learning, including the Adam optimizer, Batch Normalization, Layer Normalization, and the identification of adversarial examples. Their work has also encompassed innovations such as Transformer-XL, Autoformalization, and the Memorizing Transformer.
This strategic shift in Grok's accessibility comes at a time when xAI continues to expand its technological capabilities while maintaining its stated mission of advancing collective understanding through artificial intelligence development.