X’s Grok AI Chatbot Is Now Available to EU Users

X has announced that its Grok AI chatbot will now be made available in Europe, after finalizing an agreement with EU regulators to allow the bot, though the additional Grok news summaries will only be made available in the region after the upcoming E.U general elections.

We are excited to bring Grok to Europe!

Today we are beginning to roll out access to Grok’s AI search assistant feature to X Premium subscribers.

Once the European Elections have concluded, we will continue the rollout of contextualised trends for all users.

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) May 15, 2024
Why after the EU elections?

Well, probably because Grok has already spread various false stories, and European officials may understandably have concerns about such heading into the polls.

Though if that’s the case, then this ruling would effectively mean that EU regulators acknowledge that Grok can create false reports, but they’re less concerned about such at other times?

I don’t know, but either way, Grok is coming to Europe, with paying users able to try out the new tool

X announced that Grok was coming to the U.K. just last week, as part of its broader roll out, which it hopes will get more people interested in paying for its X Premium subscription offering.

Which, evidently, hasn’t been a big lure as yet.

According to data from AppFigures, X’s in-app revenue actually declined in April, showing that, if anything, momentum around X Premium is slowing over time.  

As you can see in this chart, X Premium was launched (or re-launched) in December 2022, and since then, X’s in-app revenue figures have steadily increased month-on-month, presumably because more subscribers, over time, are paying a monthly fee.

But the total amount dropped in February, then again in April, which suggests that X Premium isn’t seeing any significant boost in take-up as a result of adding Grok access as a bonus.

Now, these figures wouldn’t include sign-ups on desktop, or those who’ve purchased annual packages. But as an indicator, it doesn’t seem like people are overly interested in X Premium, with fewer than 0.5% of X users paying for the option.

Will making Grok available to more people help to turn that around?

I don’t know, X seems to be convinced that its smart, sassy version of an AI chatbot, powered by X posts, is a better option, but OpenAI already has a lot more people paying for ChatGPT access than those registering to use Grok.

Maybe, over time, X’s approach will attract more interest, and definitely making it available in more regions is a critical step. But it seems like X still has some way to go in convincing consumers that Grok is a valuable tool, and with increasing competition from Meta, and now Google as well, I’m not sure how Grok can even pitch itself against its much bigger competition.

But Elon’s looking to make AI a key focus, both of X and Tesla, and he could have something up his sleeve to make it more relevant.

We’ll have to wait and see.