Billionaire entrepreneur claims new chatbot outperforms rivals like ChatGPT and DeepSeek, but experts caution details are speculative.
San Francisco, CA – February 18, 2025 – Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI today announced the launch of its latest creation, an AI chatbot named “Grok 3”. At a highly anticipated event, Musk boldly declared Grok 3 to be the “smartest AI on Earth”, showcasing its purportedly advanced reasoning capabilities through benchmark tests.
Musk Touts Grok 3’s Potential to Disrupt Chatbot Market
According to Musk, Grok 3 was developed to rival leading AI chatbots like China’s DeepSeek and OpenAI’s ChatGPT by focusing on enhancing natural language reasoning abilities. He claimed this will allow Grok 3 to provide more accurate and contextual responses to user queries compared to competitors.
“Grok 3 represents a major leap forward in conversational AI,” Musk said at the event. “We’ve built it from the ground up to deeply understand and engage with human dialogue in ways that were previously impossible.”
The xAI team states that Grok 3 will receive daily updates to continually refine its knowledge and capabilities. A highly-touted voice interaction feature is slated to launch within the next week.
Rollout Begins for Premium Users
Access to the new chatbot will initially be limited to premium subscribers on X (formerly Twitter). Those on the priciest “Premium Plus” tier will be first in line to experience Grok 3’s advanced features, accessible via an update to the X mobile app.
xAI also unveiled a new standalone subscription called “Super Grok”, billed as offering the most cutting-edge Grok capabilities and earliest access to new features. It will be available through both the dedicated Grok iOS and Android apps as well as a newly launched website, grok.com.
Musk Announces New AI Gaming Studio
In a surprising twist, Musk used the Grok 3 launch event to also announce xAI’s foray into gaming. The company will open a dedicated AI gaming studio to develop titles that leverage its machine learning prowess.
“If you’re excited by the idea of building the next generation of AI-powered games, we want you on our team,” Musk said. “Join us and let’s push the boundaries of what’s possible.”
Details on the gaming initiative remain scarce, but it suggests xAI sees interactive entertainment as a key pillar alongside its chatbot and reasoning technology.
Grok 3 Tops ‘AIME 2025’ Benchmark, But Experts Urge Caution
Musk and his team pointed to Grok 3’s performance on the “AIME 2025” reasoning test as evidence of its capabilities. They claim the model outperformed a smaller version of itself on this benchmark, demonstrating strong generalization abilities.
However, AI industry watchers note that “AIME 2025” appears to be an internal xAI benchmark rather than an independently verified test. Some experts have cautioned against putting too much stock in Musk’s claims without further transparency.
“It’s exciting to see xAI aiming high with Grok 3, but bold claims need equally robust evidence,” said Dr. Ava Patel, an AI researcher at Stanford University. “The AI community will be watching closely to see if Grok 3 can deliver on its promises.”
Looking Ahead
As of August 2023, xAI had not publicly released any chatbot models, making it difficult to gauge Grok 3’s capabilities based on currently available information. Still, if the product can come close to meeting Musk’s ambitious vision, it could have significant ripple effects across the hotly contested AI chatbot space.
Ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding – or in this case, in the conversations. As the first users begin putting Grok 3 through its paces, it will become clearer whether xAI has achieved a genuine breakthrough or if its claims remain in the realm of speculative hype.
Only time will tell if Grok 3 earns a place alongside the Teslas, SpaceX rockets, and Neuralinks as another transformative Muskian innovation. For now, the world watches and waits.
