xAI Debuts Grok-2 with Enhanced Image Generation Feature on X

The Elon Musk-owned company today launched the beta version of Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini with improved inference. The new Grok AI model can now generate images on the X social network, although access to Grok is currently limited to X’s Premium and Premium+ users.

xAI said that both Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini are available in beta for users on X.

“We are excited to release an early preview of Grok-2, a significant step forward from our previous model Grok-1.5, featuring frontier capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning. At the same time, we are introducing Grok-2 mini, a small but capable sibling of Grok-2. An early version of Grok-2 has been tested on the LMSYS leaderboard under the name “sus-column-r”,” xAI’s blog post about Grok-2 read.

Musk’s AI company also plans to make both models available to developers via its enterprise API later this month.

Early user-generated images suggest that Grok’s image generation capabilities are unlimited in creating images of political figures, a fact that many users are currently taking advantage of. However, with the US presidential election looming, the company will likely come under pressure to add restrictions to these features.

The text below the sample image prompt suggests that Grok is using Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.1 to create these images.

Details about Grok 2’s actual capabilities are scarce at this time (and have been revealed; in particular, the first version of Grok had many errors in aggregating messages.

Without limitations on image generation, Grok could easily become a tool for spreading misinformation on X and other platforms. It is also unclear whether Grok-powered images contain metadata that indicates they were generated by AI.

We asked X how it plans to limit the generation of images for malicious purposes. We will update the article if we receive a response. However, the company has rarely spoken to the media since Musk’s acquisition.

xAI said the company plans to use Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in AI-driven features on X, including enhanced search capabilities, post-mortem analysis, and response capabilities. This could mean that X may introduce AI-based responses. The company also announced the release of a preview of multimodal understanding as a core part of the Grok X and API experience.