Grok Review: xAI's Everything App for AI

A year ago, Grok was a chatbot with attitude that lived inside X. Today it is an AI platform with its own subscription tiers, a 2 million token context window, video generation, image creation, deep research capabilities, and a beta model that trades off raw reasoning power for speed. xAI has been building at a pace that makes even OpenAI look methodical. After a month of testing across every Grok product, we found a platform that is genuinely excellent in several areas, inconsistent in others, and unmistakably shaped by the priorities of its owner.

The SuperGrok Tiers

Grok's free tier on X remains - basic chat, limited queries per day, access to the standard Grok model. But the real product is now SuperGrok, a standalone platform at grok.com with three subscription levels:

• SuperGrok ($30/month): Grok 4 standard, 130K context, Imagine image generation, Aurora image editing, basic DeepSearch
• SuperGrok Premium ($100/month): Grok 4 Heavy, 2M context window, priority inference, advanced DeepSearch, Imagine video generation, higher rate limits
• SuperGrok Enterprise (custom pricing): Private deployment, API access, team management, compliance controls

The pricing is aggressive. At $30/month, SuperGrok undercuts ChatGPT Plus ($20) on model capability but costs more. At $100/month, Premium competes with ChatGPT Pro ($200/month) at half the price while offering comparable heavy reasoning through Grok 4 Heavy.

The 2 Million Token Context Window

Grok 4's headline technical feature is its 2 million token context window - the largest of any commercially available model. In practice, this means you can upload an entire medium-sized codebase, a complete book, or months of chat history and have Grok reason over it coherently.

We tested the context window with a 1.8 million token software repository (the Kubernetes source code). Grok 4 answered questions about cross-file dependencies, traced execution paths across modules, and identified architectural patterns that required understanding of distant code sections. The quality held up remarkably well through the full window, with only minor degradation on "needle in a haystack" tests beyond the 1.5M mark.

For researchers and developers working with large documents or codebases, the 2M context window is not a gimmick - it is a capability that no other commercial product matches at this quality level. Google Gemini offers a similar window size, but our testing found Grok 4's retrieval accuracy at extreme context lengths to be 8-12% higher on our benchmark suite.

DeepSearch

DeepSearch is Grok's answer to Perplexity's Deep Research and ChatGPT's Browse. You ask a complex question, and Grok searches the web, reads sources, plans follow-up searches, and synthesizes a detailed answer with citations.

The X integration gives DeepSearch a unique data source. When researching current events, public sentiment, or trending topics, Grok can search X's full archive in addition to the open web. This is a genuine advantage for certain query types - "what is the developer community's reaction to the new React Server Components API?" produces richer results on Grok than Perplexity because it captures real-time discussion.

The weakness is source quality. X is not a reliable factual source, and DeepSearch occasionally surfaces tweets from non-expert accounts as supporting evidence for factual claims. The citation system exists but does not clearly differentiate between a peer-reviewed paper and a random post. Users need to evaluate sources themselves, which partially defeats the purpose.

On factual research tasks without a social component, DeepSearch is good but does not match Perplexity's precision or source quality. On topics with significant public discussion, it is genuinely better.

Imagine and Aurora

Imagine is Grok's image and video generation tool, built on xAI's custom diffusion models. Image generation is competitive with Midjourney v7 in quality - photorealistic outputs, strong prompt adherence, good understanding of spatial relationships. Where Imagine stands apart is in its willingness to generate content that other services refuse. xAI has taken a notably less restrictive approach to content moderation, which attracts some users and concerns others.

Imagine Video (Premium tier only) generates 10-second clips at 720p from text prompts. Quality is behind Sora and Veo 3 - motion can be jittery, and complex scenes with multiple subjects frequently produce artifacts. But for short social media clips, product mockups, and creative experimentation, it is usable.

Aurora is an image editing and enhancement tool that handles upscaling, style transfer, background replacement, and object removal. In testing, it performed well on standard editing tasks. The style transfer is particularly good - "convert this photo to Studio Ghibli style" produced results that felt genuinely artistic rather than filter-like.

Grok 4.20 Beta

The latest addition is the Grok 4.20 beta, a model variant that trades some of Grok 4's reasoning depth for significantly faster response times. In our testing, Grok 4.20 beta responds approximately 3x faster than standard Grok 4 while maintaining roughly 85% of its benchmark performance.

For conversational use - brainstorming, quick questions, writing assistance - Grok 4.20 beta feels better than the standard model because the speed makes interaction feel natural rather than waiting for extended reasoning. For hard math problems, complex coding tasks, or anything requiring deep reasoning, standard Grok 4 or Heavy remains the right choice.

The beta label is deserved. Grok 4.20 occasionally produces responses that contradict its own reasoning, and we observed higher hallucination rates on factual questions compared to standard Grok 4. xAI is iterating rapidly, with weekly updates to the beta.

The X Factor

Grok's relationship with X is both its greatest differentiator and its most significant concern. Deep X integration provides unique data access. Real-time sentiment analysis, trending topic awareness, and the ability to search X's full archive are capabilities no competitor can replicate.

But Grok also inherits X's content moderation challenges. The chatbot's deliberately provocative personality - "rebellious" per xAI's own description - occasionally surfaces in ways that feel more like brand personality than utility. Grok's willingness to engage with controversial topics and generate edgy content is either refreshingly honest or irresponsibly permissive, depending on your perspective.

For professional use, this personality can be a liability. A research assistant that occasionally cracks jokes about sensitive topics is not what most enterprise users want. The SuperGrok platform offers a more professional tone setting, but the underlying model retains its distinctive voice.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

• 2M token context window - largest at this quality level
• DeepSearch with X archive access provides unique research capabilities
• SuperGrok at $30/month is aggressively priced for the capability
• Grok 4 Heavy remains the strongest reasoning model available
• Imagine image generation competitive with Midjourney v7
• Aurora image editing is polished and capable
• Grok 4.20 beta offers a good speed/quality tradeoff
• Real-time X integration for current events and sentiment

Weaknesses:

• DeepSearch source quality inconsistent (X posts mixed with reliable sources)
• Imagine Video behind Sora and Veo 3 in quality
• Provocative personality can be a liability for professional use
• Grok 4.20 beta has higher hallucination rates
• Content moderation is notably less restrictive than competitors
• $100/month Premium tier is expensive for individual users
• API access restricted to Enterprise tier
• X integration means inheriting X's content quality issues

Verdict: 8.7/10

Grok has made the leap from chatbot to platform, and the platform is impressive. The 2M context window is a genuine technical achievement that enables use cases no competitor can match. DeepSearch with X integration carves out a unique niche for real-time research. Grok 4 Heavy remains the strongest reasoning model we have tested. And the pricing - $30/month for a very capable tier - undercuts the competition meaningfully.

What holds Grok back from a higher score is consistency. DeepSearch mixes reliable and unreliable sources without clear differentiation. Imagine Video is not yet competitive with the best. The provocative personality, while distinctive, undermines professional trust. And restricting API access to Enterprise pricing limits developer adoption.

xAI is building fast and building ambitiously. Grok is already the right choice for users who need massive context windows, real-time information access, or the strongest available reasoning on hard problems. For users who prioritize reliability, consistency, and a no-surprises experience, Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT remain safer bets. The question is whether xAI can deliver both ambition and polish - and at this pace, the answer may come sooner than anyone expects.

Sources:

• Grok Official Site - xAI
• SuperGrok Launch Announcement - xAI
• xAI's Grok Gets 2M Context Window, Video Generation - The Verge
• Grok 4.20 Beta: Speed vs. Reasoning Tradeoffs - Interconnects
• SuperGrok Review: Is It Worth $30/month? - Tom's Guide