Grok: Elon Musk’s AI Challenger to ChatGPT and Gemini

Generative AI is transforming daily life, with large language models (LLMs) powering everything from coding help to creative writing. OpenAI’s ChatGPT led the way, followed by competitors like Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.

Now, Elon Musk’s xAI has introduced Grok, a powerful chatbot integrated with X (formerly Twitter) and available beyond it. Inspired by the sci-fi term meaning “deep understanding,” Grok brings a bold new option to the GenAI landscape.

What is Grok 3?

Grok 3 is xAI’s LLM, unveiled on February 17, 2025, during a livestream hosted by xAI CEO Musk and the engineers behind the technology. Musk, known as the founder of Tesla and SpaceX and for acquiring Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, formed xAI to better understand the universe.

xAI, established on March 9, 2023, has primarily contributed the Grok AI assistant chatbot, powered by its core LLM. Grok 3 is the third version, following Grok 1 and Grok 2. Like its predecessors, Grok 3 is built using both the Rust and Python programming languages. While Grok 1 had some code under the open-source Apache 2.0 license, Grok 3 is proprietary and does not offer any code under an open-source license.

 

What can Grok 3 do?

Grok 3 uses two core modes of operation—Think and DeepSearch—to address different tasks.

Both modes represent advanced forms of reasoning that surpass the basic knowledge retrieval of earlier Grok models.

 

Think Mode

In Think mode, Grok 3 adopts a chain-of-thought (CoT) approach when addressing a user’s request, detailing the model’s reasoning step by step.

 

 

DeepSearch Mode

With DeepSearch mode, Grok 3’s search engine provides more extensive and detailed internet results, investigating more sources than Think mode. As a result, DeepSearch mode usually requires more time to execute a query compared to Think mode.

Across both Think and DeepSearch modes, Grok 3 manages a wide array of functions, including:

• Advanced reasoning: Grok 3 uses a multistep reasoning approach to every request. The model corrects errors and delivers well-reasoned and more accurate responses.

• Content summarization: As with any modern LLM, Grok 3 summarizes content, including text, images, and video.

• Text generation: Grok 3 also generates text content.

• Knowledge retrieval: Particularly in DeepSearch mode, Grok 3 surpasses traditional LLMs, which are restricted by their training data. Grok 3 scours the internet for up-to-date, relevant information.

• Mathematics: Grok 3 shows advanced math skills, achieving strong results across industry benchmarks.

• Coding: A core capability of Grok 3 is generating code, optimizing and debugging existing code.

• Voice capability: Grok 3 offers an integrated voice mode for verbal replies.

 

Previous Iterations of Grok

Grok has been in development since xAI’s formation in 2023. Versions preceding the Grok 3 update in February 2025 include:

• Grok 1: The first model, launched on Nov. 3, 2023, presented an AI chatbot with more “personality” than others, injecting humor into its responses.

• Grok 1.5: Unveiled on March 28, 2024, Grok 1.5 increased the model’s context length to 128,000 tokens, improving problem-solving and delivering competitive benchmark results against competitors such as Anthropic Claude 3, OpenAI GPT-4, and Google Gemini Pro 1.5.

• Grok 1.5v: On April 12, 2024, xAI introduced Grok 1.5 vision (Grok 1.5v), a multimodal version of Grok. Grok 1.5v was xAI’s first model capable of understanding and analyzing images.

• Grok 2: The first versions of Grok 2 and Grok 2 mini were released on Aug. 14, 2024, featuring built-in multimodal functionality and improved performance over Grok 1.5. Grok 2 could generate images through a partnership with Black Forest Labs, which developed the FLUX text-to-image generation technology.

 

Grok 3 vs. GPT-4o vs. DeepSeek-R1

The quest for leading-edge LLMs has led to highly competitive vendor options. Among Grok 3’s notable competitors are OpenAI’s GPT-4o, initially launched on May 24, 2024, and DeepSeek-R1, which debuted on Jan. 20, 2025.

Grok goes beyond knowledge retrieval, deeply integrating advanced reasoning. Meanwhile, DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3’s reasoning model, lacks Grok 3’s search capabilities. While not a core reasoning model, GPT-4o is more of a general-purpose model with some reasoning skills; for core reasoning models from OpenAI, see their o1 and o3 models.

xAI has reported that Grok 3 produced superior results than its rivals across industry benchmarks such as LiveCodeBench for coding and AIME 2024 in math.

How to Use Grok 3

As an xAI technology, Grok 3 is accessible through several channels at launch.

Grok 3 is accessible to users of the X platform via the web and mobile apps.

• Free users: Free X users have limited access to Grok 3.

• X Premium/Premium+ users: Paid X users, including Premium and Premium+ subscribers, get greater access to Grok 3, including Think and DeepResearch modes. Voice mode, when available, is exclusive to paid users, with Premium+ users getting early access.

 

Grok.com

The Grok 3 model can also be found at the grok.com website.

• Free users: Free users have limited access to Grok 3 models.

• SuperGrok: XAI’s SuperGrok subscription costs $30 per month or $300 if paid upfront yearly, and it includes expanded access to Grok 3 and unlimited image generation. SuperGrok users will also get early access to voice mode.

 

Grok Mobile App

The Grok mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Google Android devices, offers the same subscription options as grok.com.

 

API Access

Although planned, no timeline is currently available for API access to Grok 3.

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