X plans to show ads in Grok chatbot’s answers

Grok’s responses to users on X could include paid advertisements in the future. According to the Financial Times, X owner Elon Musk told advertisers in a live discussion that his company would let marketers pay to appear in suggestions from Grok. He said that after making Grok the “smartest, most accurate AI in the world,” the company is now focusing on paying “for those expensive GPUs.” Musk added that if a person is asking Grok to solve a specific problem, then “advertising the specific solution would be ideal at that point.”

What exactly does including ads into the chatbot’s responses mean? Will the advertised products or services be clearly labeled as such? Will they compromise Grok’s responses? Musk didn’t delve into specifics. Instead, he talked about how xAI will automate the ad process for brands and improve targeting overall. Musk also said that xAI will assess the aesthetics of an ad and will prioritize those that appear more pleasing to the eye. He shared that his company has plans to build a checkout feature so that users can make purchases within the app, as well.

Musk said he wants to “overcome the curse of Twitter,” in that users “never bought a single thing [for a decade] because the advertising system never actually showed the participants what they wanted.” Some advertisers, the Times noted, still don’t want to advertise on X because they deem it too toxic. In May, Grok repeated claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa on X, even when the user’s question had nothing to do with it. And then a mere two months later, the chatbot went on antisemitic and pro-Nazi rants on X, which Musk then blamed on rogue users.