SAN FRANCISCO - Mr Elon Musk said on Dec 7 that his artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI is rolling out ChatGPT competitor Grok for Premium+ subscribers of social media platform X.

He announced it in a post on X, without revealing anymore details of the launch.

In November, he had said that as soon as Grok was out of early beta testing, it would become available to the subscribers.

As more advertisers move away from the microblogging platform, the billionaire has stressed on reducing the company’s reliance on advertising and has turned his focus on subscriptions and making them more attractive.

He even intends to turn X into a “super app”, offering a range of services to its subscribers from messaging and social networking to peer-to-peer payments.

Mr Musk launched xAI in July in a response to Big Tech’s AI efforts, which he has criticised for excessive censorship and a lack of adequate safety measures.

Large tech companies including Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google are racing to launch AI-powered products after OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT caught the imagination of businesses and users globally.

Mr Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from the company’s board in 2018. REUTERS