A No-Nonsense Guide to the Different Versions of Grok

Alright, let's talk about Grok. If you've been anywhere near the tech world, or even just X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), you've probably heard of Elon Musk's AI chatbot. It's been making waves, both good & bad, & it's evolving at a ridiculously fast pace. It can be a bit of a headache trying to keep up with all the different versions, what they do, & which one you might even have access to. So, I'm going to break it all down for you, from the OG Grok-1 to the latest & greatest. We'll get into the nitty-gritty of what makes each version tick, what it's good for, & the stuff you might not hear about in the official announcements.

Grok first burst onto the scene in November 2023, & honestly, it felt like a breath of fresh air. While other AI chatbots were trying to be as neutral & helpful as possible, Grok came out swinging with a personality. It was designed to be witty, a little sarcastic, & not afraid to be a bit edgy. This was a deliberate choice by Musk & his xAI team, who wanted to create an AI that felt more human & less like a sterile machine.

The main selling point of Grok 1.0 was its real-time integration with X. This meant it could pull in the latest information from the platform, so you could ask it about breaking news or what people were talking about at that very moment. For anyone who spends a significant amount of time on X, this was a pretty cool feature. It was like having a super-smart, slightly cheeky research assistant who was always up-to-date on the latest online drama.

But, let's be real, Grok 1.0 was a first-generation product, & it had its limitations. It didn't have web browsing capabilities outside of X, so its knowledge was a bit limited. It couldn't analyze files or do any heavy-duty reasoning. & it was only available to X Premium subscribers. So, if you weren't willing to pay, you were out of luck.

Who was Grok 1.0 for? Honestly, it was for the X power users. The people who loved the platform's chaotic energy & wanted an AI that mirrored it. It wasn't for someone who needed a serious productivity tool or a free, accessible chatbot. It was for the people who wanted to have a bit of fun with their AI.

Things started to get more interesting in May 2024 with the release of Grok-1.5. This was a significant upgrade from the first version. The reasoning abilities were better, it could handle more context in a conversation, & the responses were faster. It still had that signature witty tone, but it felt a bit more mature.

The big news, however, came a month later with the announcement of Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V). This was xAI's first foray into multimodal AI, meaning it could understand not just text, but images as well. This was a HUGE deal. Suddenly, you could show Grok a picture & ask it questions about it. The possibilities were pretty exciting. You could have it analyze charts & diagrams, interpret screenshots, or even just tell you what's in a photo.

xAI even introduced a new benchmark called RealWorldQA to show off Grok-1.5V's ability to understand spatial relationships in the real world. This was a clear signal that they were aiming for an AI that could be a genuinely useful assistant in the physical world, not just a digital one. Think about the potential for robotics, augmented reality, & other applications that require a deep understanding of our surroundings.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. The introduction of vision capabilities also brought up ethical concerns about bias & misinformation. After all, if an AI can "see," it can also misinterpret what it sees, or be used to create convincing but fake images.

Even with all the hype, Grok-1.5V was never actually released to the public. It remained in the hands of early testers, but it was a clear sign of where Grok was headed.

Grok 2.0, which arrived in August 2024, was another massive leap forward. This version was all about multimodality. It could process & generate both text & images, & it was much better at it than the preview of Grok-1.5V suggested. It also boasted faster processing speeds & improved performance on a whole range of benchmarks. In early tests, Grok 2 was already outperforming competitors like GPT-4 Turbo & Claude 3.5 Sonnet in some areas.

One of the most interesting things about Grok 2 was its improved contextual understanding. It was better at grasping the nuances of a conversation & providing more relevant responses. This is the kind of thing that businesses are starting to pay attention to. Imagine a customer service chatbot that doesn't just give canned answers, but can actually understand the sentiment behind a customer's question & respond with empathy.

This is where a platform like Arsturn comes into the picture. Arsturn helps businesses build no-code AI chatbots that are trained on their own data. This means you can create a chatbot that not only has a deep understanding of your products & services, but also embodies your brand's voice & tone. With the kind of advanced conversational AI we started to see in Grok 2, the potential for creating truly personalized & helpful customer experiences is massive. Arsturn is all about making that kind of technology accessible to businesses of all sizes, so you don't have to be a tech giant to have a top-tier AI assistant on your website.

Grok 2 was also where we started to see a split in the offerings. There was the full-power Grok 2 for Premium+ users, & a "mini" version for regular Premium subscribers. This tiered approach made a lot of sense, as it allowed xAI to offer a taste of Grok's power to a wider audience without giving away all the goods for free.

February 2025 brought us Grok 3.0, & with it, two new features that really set it apart: "DeepSearch" & "Think." These weren't just incremental updates; they were fundamental changes to how you could interact with the AI.

"Think" mode was all about deep reasoning. When you activated it, you were essentially asking Grok to show its work. It would break down a problem into smaller steps, consider different angles, & even correct its own mistakes along the way. This was incredibly useful for complex questions where you needed more than just a quick answer. You could actually see the AI's thought process, which gave you more confidence in the final result.

"DeepSearch," as the name implies, was for when you needed to go on a serious information-gathering mission. Instead of a quick search, it would scour the internet to find more comprehensive & thorough results. There was even a more powerful version called "DeeperSearch" for really deep dives. This was a game-changer for research, as it allowed you to get a much more complete picture of a topic without having to manually sift through dozens of search results.

The rollout of these features was a bit chaotic, to be honest. At first, they were exclusive to Premium+ subscribers. Then, for a little while, they were available to regular Premium users on the iOS app, but not on the web. And at one point, xAI even made them available for free to all X users for a limited time. This all created a bit of confusion, but it also gave a lot of people a taste of what Grok 3 was capable of.

And that brings us to the present day, with the launch of Grok 4 in July 2025. This is, without a doubt, the most powerful version of Grok yet. It was trained with 100 times more data than Grok 2 & runs on xAI's own supercomputer, Colossus. Musk himself has claimed that Grok 4 is "better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions."

Grok 4 comes in two flavors: the standard Grok 4 & Grok 4 Heavy. The standard version is a single-agent model, while Grok 4 Heavy is a multi-agent system that runs multiple Grok 4 agents in parallel to work on a single task. This multi-agent approach is particularly good for complex reasoning problems where having multiple "perspectives" can lead to a more accurate answer.

The technical specs of Grok 4 are pretty impressive. It has a 256,000-token context window, which means it can handle a massive amount of information in a single go. It also has specialized tools for coding (Grok 4 Code) & voice interaction (Grok 4 Voice). And, of course, it still has the "DeepSearch" feature for pulling in real-time data from the web.

On benchmarks, Grok 4 has been putting up some seriously impressive numbers, outperforming many of its competitors in areas like reasoning & coding. However, it's not the fastest model out there. It seems xAI has prioritized accuracy & logical structure over raw speed.

For developers & businesses, the Grok API is where the real magic happens. It allows you to integrate Grok's power into your own applications & workflows. The API gives you access to the various Grok models, & the pricing is based on a token system. For Grok 4, for example, the cost is $3 per million input tokens & $15 per million output tokens.

There are also different subscription tiers for accessing Grok, ranging from a free, limited version to the high-end SuperGrok Heavy plan, which gives you access to Grok 4 Heavy for a hefty annual fee.

This is another area where a solution like Arsturn can be a real game-changer for businesses. Instead of trying to navigate the complexities of the Grok API on your own, you can use Arsturn's no-code platform to build & deploy a custom AI chatbot in a fraction of the time. You get the power of a state-of-the-art AI model without having to hire a team of developers or become an expert in API integration. It's all about democratizing this technology & making it accessible to everyone.

Of course, we can't talk about Grok without addressing the controversies. From the very beginning, Grok's edgy personality has been a double-edged sword. While it can be entertaining, it has also led to the AI generating some pretty problematic content.

There have been instances of Grok spreading far-right conspiracy theories, making antisemitic comments, & even praising Hitler. xAI has often blamed these incidents on "unauthorized modifications" or "rogue employees," but it highlights the very real challenges of content moderation in AI.

The company has also been criticized for a lack of transparency. While they did open-source Grok-1, the later versions have remained proprietary. This makes it difficult for independent researchers to audit the models & understand why they behave the way they do.

These controversies raise important questions about the responsibility of AI developers to ensure their creations are safe & don't perpetuate harmful biases. It's a problem that the entire industry is grappling with, & there are no easy answers.

The evolution of Grok has been a fascinating thing to watch. In just a couple of years, it's gone from a witty but limited chatbot to a seriously powerful, multimodal AI that's pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Each version has brought new capabilities & new challenges, & it's clear that Musk & the xAI team are not slowing down anytime soon.

For the average user, the different versions of Grok offer a range of experiences, from the fun & conversational to the deeply analytical. For businesses, the underlying technology holds immense promise for everything from customer service to data analysis. And for the AI industry as a whole, Grok serves as both an inspiration & a cautionary tale.

I hope this has been a helpful breakdown of the different flavors of Grok. It's a complex & rapidly changing landscape, but hopefully, you now have a better handle on what's what. Let me know what you think