Elon Musk’s xAI unveils Grok-2 and Grok-2 Mini: Advanced AI models now available for X premium users

xAI, the artificial intelligence company owned by Elon Musk, has officially unveiled its latest AI models, Grok-2 and Grok-2 Mini, in a beta release. 

As per Gadgets 360, these new models represent a significant upgrade from the company's previous AI iteration, Grok-1.5, offering enhanced capabilities in conversational AI, coding, and complex reasoning tasks. Both models are now accessible to X Premium and X Premium+ users , who can explore the new features by updating their app to the latest version.

Reportedly, Grok-2 is touted as a state-of-the-art (SOTA) AI model, bringing advanced language processing capabilities to users, while Grok-2 Mini offers a more compact and efficient version of the full model. The smaller model is designed to deliver faster and more precise responses, making it ideal for users who need quick and reliable answers.

During internal testing, an early version of Grok-2, identified under the alias “sus-column-r,” was benchmarked on the Large Model Systems Organization (LMSYS) leaderboard. It reportedly outperformed notable models like Claude 2.5 Sonnet and GPT-4 Turbo, particularly excelling in areas such as coding, mathematics, and challenging prompts. The LMSYS organization corroborated these results, highlighting Grok-2's impressive performance, where it ranked second in coding and math and fourth in handling difficult prompts.

In addition to these advancements, xAI has revamped the Grok AI user interface, introducing new features, including the much-anticipated image generation capability. However, xAI has partnered with a third-party AI model for this functionality. The image generation is powered by the Flux.1 model, developed by Black Forest Labs. According to a report by TechCrunch, the Flux.1 model lacks the usual safety guardrails, allowing it to generate images that include political figures.

Currently, xAI has not released detailed technical specifications regarding the architecture or underlying database of the Grok-2 models. Nevertheless, the release of Grok-2 and Grok-2 Mini marks a notable milestone in the evolution of AI, particularly in the realm of conversational and coding tasks.