xAI

Founded in March 2023, Elon Musk's xAI is an AI-focused company that develops large language models (LLMs) and related applications. Its team includes former employees of prominent AI companies, such as OpenAI, DeepMind, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla.

In November 2023, the company launched Grok, an AI assistant that allows users to obtain answers to questions based on information available online. Grok is based on xAI’s LLM, Grok-1, aimed at excelling in tasks like middle school mathematics, multiple choice questions, Python code completion, and LATEX-formatted math problems. xAI claims that its major edge lies in Grok's ability to source real-time information through the X (formerly Twitter) platform. This makes it stand out among other similar products as it claims to offer users more updated, current responses to their queries. Moreover, Grok elicits a slightly sarcastic and witty tone, making the AI interaction more engaging for the users.

Grok was made available to users with X premium subscriptions in the US and 45+ other countries in December 2023. 

In March 2024, xAI open-sourced the foundational code of its Grok AI model excluding the training code to assist developers and researchers to work on the model, thereby influencing its future updates. In March 2024 it introduced the Grok 1.5 model with improved reasoning capabilities and in April 2024 it introduced Grok-1.5V with vision capabilities.

Funding and financials

In December 2023, xAI raised USD 135 million , while filing to raise up to USD 1 billion.