Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, launched its flagship model, Grok 3, late on Monday, introducing new features for its iOS and web applications. Grok serves as a competitor to existing models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini, offering capabilities such as image analysis and interactive questioning that bolster functionalities on Musk’s social media platform, X.
Originally anticipated for a 2024 launch, Grok 3 had been in development for several months and is reported to utilize an enhanced data center in Memphis equipped with approximately 200,000 GPUs. Musk stated that Grok 3 was engineered with ten times the computing power of its predecessor, Grok 2, harnessing a broader training dataset that reportedly includes court case documents among other materials.
Musk framed Grok 3 as “an order of magnitude more capable” than prior iterations, emphasizing it as a “maximally truth-seeking AI,” even if that truth occasionally clashes with prevailing political correctness. The new model comes with a family of variations, including Grok 3 mini, which prioritizes rapid response time over precision. While some features and models were deployed on Monday, a full rollout remains in progress, with additional capabilities still in beta testing.
xAI alleges that Grok 3 surpasses GPT-4o in various benchmarks, including AIME, which tests mathematical proficiency, and GPQA, evaluating PhD-level scientific questions. In a competitive assessment known as Chatbot Arena, an early version of Grok 3 also performed well, indicating strong community reception.
Among the newly introduced Grok 3 variants are Grok 3 Reasoning and Grok 3 mini Reasoning, designed to methodically process inquiries akin to reasoning models from OpenAI and DeepSeek. These models emphasize fact-checking, which is key in improving output reliability and addressing common mistakes associated with AI responses. Users can engage the reasoning models through specific commands in the Grok app, enhancing its capability for science, mathematics, and programming-related questions.
A new function termed DeepSearch has been introduced, allowing users to perform AI-driven research by scanning the web and the social media platform X for relevant data. Early access to Grok 3 will be available to subscribers of X’sPremium+ plan, with an anticipated new subscription tier, SuperGrok, unlocking more advanced features for a monthly fee.
Musk also hinted at a forthcoming “voice mode” for Grok, set to be released in about a week, providing synthesized vocal responses. Moreover, xAI plans to release Grok 2 as an open-source model in the months ahead, which Musk mentioned would coincide with the maturation of Grok 3.
In the context of prior Grok models, Musk has sought to address initial criticisms regarding political biases reflected in the output, vowing to steer Grok towards greater political neutrality going forward. The effectiveness of this shift remains uncertain.
Overall, the unveiling of Grok 3 signals an ambitious leap in AI development, showcasing xAI’s commitment to creating a robust conversational partner that seeks truth with a focus on contextually relevant responses. As the technology evolves, it could redefine user interaction with AI and the boundaries of automated reasoning.