Grok

What is Grok?

Grok is the AI built by xAI, Elon Musk's AI company. It launched in 2023 as part of the X (formerly Twitter) platform and has developed quickly into a serious competitor to ChatGPT and Claude. The latest version, Grok 4.20, introduces multi-agent capabilities that put it in a different category from most AI chat tools.

If you are already on X, you have access to Grok without signing up for anything new. That alone makes it worth knowing about.

What it's actually good for

Real-time information. This is Grok's clearest advantage over most other AI tools. Because it is built into X, it can pull from the platform's live feed of posts, breaking news, trending topics, and public discussions. If you want to know what is happening right now, Grok is the tool to reach for.

For UK business owners tracking market sentiment, following a news story, or researching what people are saying about a brand or topic, this is genuinely useful.

Multi-agent workflows with Grok 4.20. The 4.20 update introduced multi-agent capabilities, which means Grok can now coordinate multiple AI tasks running in parallel. Instead of answering one question at a time, it can spin up several agents to research, analyse, and compile results simultaneously. This is a meaningful step towards AI doing complex, multi-step work rather than just answering prompts.

For businesses, this opens up possibilities like researching a market across multiple angles at once, pulling together information from several sources in a single pass, or running parallel analysis tasks without waiting for each to complete sequentially.

Strong reasoning. Grok scores well on reasoning benchmarks and handles complex analytical questions confidently. It is a good choice when you need something thought through properly rather than just summarised.

Straightforward chat. Like any good AI assistant, Grok handles everyday writing, drafting, summarising, and question-answering well. Nothing surprising here, but worth noting it is not just a novelty.

Grok vs the competition

Grok's main differentiator is the live X data access. ChatGPT and Claude have training cutoffs and use separate web browsing tools to access current information. Grok has it baked in, which makes it faster and more natural for real-time queries.

The multi-agent capabilities in 4.20 put it alongside tools like OpenAI's Operator in terms of ambition, even if the implementation is still maturing.

On pure writing quality and nuanced reasoning, Claude remains strong competition. But for speed, real-time context, and X integration, Grok is in a class of its own.

Who should use it

Grok is a particularly good fit for anyone who is already active on X, anyone who regularly needs current information rather than summarised older knowledge, and businesses exploring multi-agent AI workflows. It is also an easy entry point for people who want a capable AI assistant included in something they are already paying for.

How to get set up

1. Go to grok.com or open the X app on your phone
2. Sign in with your X account (or create one, it is free)
3. Click Grok in the sidebar on the left
4. Start typing your question or task in the chat box

If you have X Premium (£8/month), Grok is included with no extra steps. If you do not have Premium, you still get access to Grok with some usage limits on the free tier.

Time to get started: Under 2 minutes Do you need a credit card? No, if you already have an X account