xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, is making significant strides with its Grok AI model. Recent developments suggest that Grok 3 is nearing release, bringing notable advancements over its predecessor, Grok 2.
Here’s a breakdown of the latest updates:
Chain of Thought support
Grok 3 is expected to introduce a "chain of thought" reasoning capability, allowing it to process complex tasks step-by-step in a manner resembling human cognitive processes. This feature has been hinted at in traces found within the standalone Grok app but is not yet active in Grok 2. The chain of thought approach could significantly improve the model's ability to handle intricate queries and provide more coherent, logical responses.
The standalone Grok web app now includes mentions of "thinking", "thinking start time", "thinking end time", and "thinking trace" - preparations for Grok 3, a new reasoning model? pic.twitter.com/2eY0XUXTfU
— Tibor Blaho (@btibor91) January 29, 2025
Additionally, there are indications that Grok may soon include a Pro mode, as assets for this feature were briefly spotted in the iOS version of the app. However, its availability and specifics remain uncertain since the label was removed shortly after discovery.
Standalone App Expansion
The standalone Grok application is set to launch in the European region on February 28, 2025. This marks an expansion from its current availability in select countries and aligns with xAI’s goal of broadening access to its AI tools. It remains unclear if this date will coincide with the official release of Grok 3.
Grok Standalone app for iOS is scheduled to arrive to EU on February 28 👀 pic.twitter.com/D1jtRCrj6N
— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) January 30, 2025
Company Overview and Recent Developments
xAI has positioned itself as a competitor to industry leaders like OpenAI and Google. The company has invested heavily in computational resources, training Grok 3 on approximately 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. This substantial infrastructure underpins improvements in reasoning, coding capabilities, and multimodal functionalities such as text and image analysis.
Grok’s unique personality—offering both regular and "fun" modes—has been a hallmark of its design. These modes allow users to choose between straightforward responses or interactions infused with humor and sarcasm. The upcoming Pro mode could further enhance user customization by potentially adding advanced features tailored to professional use cases.