Grok Is Now Available Without an X Account
It’s 2025, which means every tech company, of course, needs its own AI bot. X is no exception: from the end of 2023, the site offers its subscribers a Premium chatbot developed by sister company xAI. While Blue Check accounts can benefit from a built-in AI solution, the vast majority of users with even a passing interest in AI will undoubtedly look to other options, free or not, such as ChatGPT or Gemini .
That may change this year: in December, xAI announced a free version of Grok , specifically the newest Grok-2 model, available to anyone with an X account. Today, if you click on the Grok tab on X, you can access Grok is just like any other chatbot you’ve used before. This is normal and good for the curious among us who are still on X. But those who have fled for greener pastures have not been able to take advantage of this. That is, until now.
Grok on iPhone, no X account required.
Starting this week, Grok is available as a free iOS app —with no strings attached. To use Grok, you don’t need an X account, and you don’t need to log into any account at all. (Of course, you can connect your X account or sign in with Apple, Google, or email.) Once you download the app, you can immediately ask Grok whatever you ask the AI chatbot. If you’re not signed in with X Premium, it looks like the app addresses the same limitations as the free plan . That’s 10 requests every two hours, three image analysis requests, and four image generation per day.
Of course, the question now is will people actually use Grok? It’s possible. As of this writing, it’s the fourth most popular free app in the iOS App Store—one spot below ChatGPT and well above Gemini at number 49. (X is number 31, by the way.) I’m a little skeptical, though. about his tenacity. I certainly understand X and Elon Musk fans flocking to Grok, but I think most people who care about AI will stick with what they know (like ChatGPT) unless Grok can do something different , the best, or both.
I’ll admit, Grok is fast: I haven’t tried it myself yet, and the speed at which it responds to text requests is impressive. However, I haven’t spent too much time on it, so I can’t swear to how accurate the results are, and as a relative AI skeptic, I’m unlikely to use it much. However, the only advantage I see with the Grok (and not necessarily in a good way) is the lack of a filter. After all, it is an X Corp product, which means Grok doesn’t have some of the restrictions and limitations that other services have put in place to prevent abuse. When it comes to image generation, you can do some wild things with Grok.
When Lifehacker assistant technical editor Michelle Ehrhardt tested the beta version of Grok-2 in August , she was stunned by some of the images she was able to create with Grok: violent, offensive and strange. Even with a little testing, I was able to get Grock to violate copyright without even having to trick him: for example, using Google Imagen 3, I was able to generate images of Mario by telling the bot vague workarounds, such as “Italian plumber wearing a red cap with an M on it.” ” Asking him to draw Mario won’t work. Grok is the opposite: try a workaround and he’ll spit out weird pictures of men in Mario clothes. Ask him draw Mario and he will do it – for better or for worse.