The X-Rated AI Companion That’s Going Mega Viral | Grok Companions (xAI)

In this episode, we dive into Elon Musk's xAI, discussing the launch of virtual companions and the innovative text-to-video tool, Imagine. We explore how these AI characters, like the flirty Ani and sarcastic Rudi, redefine user interactions by fostering deeper connections and engagement. The conversation highlights Imagine's fast content generation capabilities, merging creativity with emotional resonance. Join us for insights into XAI's bold approach and its potential to reshape the future of AI!

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 AI Companions Unleashed
3:37 Unique Personalities of AI
5:59 Meet Valentine
8:15 The Controversial Nature of Companions
13:30 New Product: Imagine
15:37 Speedy Image and Video Generation
22:11 The Future of AI Interaction
24:35 Conclusion and Call to Action

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RESOURCES

Josh: https://x.com/Josh_Kale

Ejaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Creators and Guests

Host

Ejaaz Ahamadeen

Host

Josh Kale

What is Limitless: An AI Podcast?

Exploring the frontiers of Technology and AI

Ejaaz:
Elon Musk's AI company XAI has been on an absolute tear over the last two weeks.

Ejaaz:
They've released these things called virtual companions, which have helped onboard

Ejaaz:
tens of millions of users and reached hundreds of millions of views across all

Ejaaz:
social media platforms.

Ejaaz:
They also released this new text to video model, which basically turns any kind

Ejaaz:
of words or even an image into a video in under 30 seconds.

Ejaaz:
But the secret source behind both of these products is that Elon has designed

Ejaaz:
these to go against the grain. They stretch the rules.

Ejaaz:
Josh, I know you've been playing around with these for quite a while.

Ejaaz:
What's your take? Let's start with the companions.

Josh:
There's some new tools in the block. Companions are sick. It's funny because

Josh:
when XAI and the Grok team release a new feature, it is completely antithetical

Josh:
to what the status quo is.

Josh:
It shifts the Overton window so far out of the realm of what was acceptable

Josh:
that it's almost jarring.

Josh:
So the new feature that we're going to talk about today is companions.

Josh:
And companions are these digital companions. I'm actually going to show them

Josh:
on the screen right now for those who are watching.

Josh:
For those who are listening, you're looking at this like anime girl.

Josh:
She's got like these cute blonde ponytails wearing a dress and she speaks very

Josh:
flirtatiously. So these companions are basically these AI generated kind of

Josh:
like anime humanoid personalities.

Josh:
And they have the context of your chat history and they will just kind of engage

Josh:
with you. And as you engage with these companions, you kind of build this little

Josh:
status bar. It's like a mana bar if you play video games and it improves your

Josh:
credibility with these companions.

Josh:
And then eventually what happens is you could actually get this companion so

Josh:
excited that she will quite literally take her clothes off.

Josh:
I think these types of things, the flirtatious attitude, the removing some layers

Josh:
of clothing as you're talking to them, it is very stark contrast to what we're

Josh:
used to comparing something to OpenAI's models where they are so stern on,

Josh:
what they're allowed to say, the opinion they're allowed to have.

Josh:
And this is just completely blowing those expectations out of the ballpark.

Josh:
I played with it. I showed my friends them.

Josh:
It kind of reminded me in a weird way of NFTs when I was in crypto,

Josh:
when we were doing the big crypto NFT boom.

Josh:
Because NFTs are just very simple to understand. You see a picture of something

Josh:
cute and you immediately resonate with it. You understand.

Josh:
And I think companions are very similar where you don't really need to explain

Josh:
what it is or how it works.

Josh:
You just present the companion to your friend and they immediately,

Josh:
the first thing they want to do is talk to it. And that's what they do.

Josh:
And then they get an answer.

Josh:
So companions are this really powerful new form factor of delivering AI where

Josh:
you actually have this physical person lives in your phone, remembers your conversations

Josh:
and can converse with you.

Ejaaz:
Yeah, I kind of think of all these different AI companies as having personality.

Ejaaz:
Right so if grok is the kind of cheeky feisty maybe even sexual one in some

Ejaaz:
cases then anthropic is kind of like the buttoned up calm polite ai model does

Ejaaz:
that make sense josh yeah

Josh:
They all have their own personalities.

Ejaaz:
Yeah, exactly. So if we're talking about these companions, there are three of

Ejaaz:
them. Okay, so we have Annie, who you see on the screen right now.

Ejaaz:
We have one called Valentine, which I'm going to show you in a second,

Ejaaz:
which is kind of like a male version of an anime character that you can talk

Ejaaz:
to in the same way in voice mode.

Ejaaz:
And then you have someone called Rudy, which is this animated fox, I believe.

Ejaaz:
And it's super cheeky, intentionally sarcastic, and basically spends most of

Ejaaz:
the time insulting you, right?

Ejaaz:
So, stark contrast between OpenAI's model, which is known for glazing you,

Ejaaz:
so agreeing with everything you say, telling you what a champ you are, Josh,

Ejaaz:
and then Grok's model, which is kind of like this kind of flirtatious,

Ejaaz:
cheeky, kind of sarcastic character, right?

Ejaaz:
And they come in all forms and sizes. So, if you see the screen here,

Ejaaz:
we have Ani in, I believe this is Japanese, and you can hear her speak.

Josh:
I don't know where the real goal is, but...

Ejaaz:
So the point is, these things are widespread to anyone that is using X and comes

Ejaaz:
in any kind of language, right?

Ejaaz:
I want to pick up on a point that you made earlier, Josh, which is around the

Ejaaz:
stickiness of these AI companions.

Ejaaz:
I think there are two reasons why this is the case. Number one, they're voice native.

Ejaaz:
So not only can you hear them, but you now have a face that you can kind of

Ejaaz:
put towards the voice, right? So it's a very human, intuitive aspect.

Ejaaz:
It's like you're speaking to someone else. They sound human, right?

Ejaaz:
But also you're speaking with your voice as well versus kind of typing on your phone.

Ejaaz:
And the reason why that's so important is, well, I don't know about you,

Ejaaz:
but when I find that I'm talking to these AI models, I always divulge way more

Ejaaz:
information than I was intending to, right?

Ejaaz:
And if you think about this, these conversations are getting stored on,

Ejaaz:
you know, the backend server of XAI's AI models, right?

Ejaaz:
So they can use this for a bunch of other stuff, but it builds this very rich context.

Ejaaz:
So it goes beyond just these like fun animated characters, which anyone from

Ejaaz:
like kids to grown adults can speak to about various different topics,

Ejaaz:
but it's this like native voiceover that you can kind of like take

Ejaaz:
to enhance your journey in AI.

Josh:
Yeah, the voice form factor is the right form factor. I think when I use,

Josh:
or the way to interface with these AIs, When I engage with any sort of AI system,

Josh:
I would say now 90% of the time I'm using my voice.

Josh:
I have a microphone set up at my desk and I'm actually just speaking into the

Josh:
microphone and ChatGPT is dictating a lot of these things.

Josh:
It is the preferred method. And it's funny you mentioned the language.

Josh:
It's Japanese because it is the number one app in Japan right now,

Josh:
along with a few other countries.

Josh:
The virality of this was pretty remarkable.

Josh:
I think it's because it just broke open that Overton window in such a unique

Josh:
way that people were like...

Josh:
I think a lot of people have secretly wanted this. They've wanted these physical

Josh:
form factors to the AI, but they haven't gotten it because they're too dangerous

Josh:
for a lot of companies to do.

Josh:
XAI just kind of threw this out the window. They dropped these companions.

Josh:
They're awesome. I would encourage everyone to go check them out.

Josh:
They're super fun. And they just released a new one, who is V.

Josh:
Is there a full name? Is it Valen, Valentin?

Ejaaz:
It's Valentine.

Josh:
Valentine, Valentine. Oh, here it is on screen. Yeah, so could you introduce

Josh:
us to Valentine? Because they're all kind of unique personalities.

Josh:
They all do different things.

Ejaaz:
Okay so valentine was released last night so this is the morning of the next

Ejaaz:
day that we're recording this um i have used it for the last three hours josh

Ejaaz:
before this guy yeah so i've

Ejaaz:
been i've been talking well he's been chatting me up that's the thing so

Ejaaz:
If i were to describe valentine he takes the flirtatious scale up to its fullest

Ejaaz:
extent it's it's if i'm being honest It's like talking to a Fifty Shades of Grey book.

Ejaaz:
And it's like giving me all these like kind of cheesy lines where it's kind

Ejaaz:
of trying to chat me up. So I asked him, you know,

Ejaaz:
Where should we go on like a road trip if we were to go somewhere?

Ejaaz:
And he kept using these kind of like very elusive analogies like,

Ejaaz:
you know, we'll just break away and see where our heart takes us.

Ejaaz:
Very romanticized. And as you can see on the screen, there are rose petals going around him.

Ejaaz:
And actually this tweet embellishes kind of like the target demographic that

Ejaaz:
I think it's actually going after.

Ejaaz:
It's this guy here that says, I gave my girlfriend Valentine,

Ejaaz:
which is referring to this AI companion, to try out, fully expecting her to say, this is cringe.

Ejaaz:
Because she isn't a huge fan of AI, but she ended up playing with it until 2 a.m.

Ejaaz:
And ended up installing Grok, the app. So the point being that people are finding

Ejaaz:
it incredibly engaging because of its flirtatious nature.

Ejaaz:
And Josh, this is something I want to pause for a second and actually discuss

Ejaaz:
because this is the controversial or maybe not so controversial take on these

Ejaaz:
AI companions is that they're kind of taking the,

Ejaaz:
I think the kids say Guna logic or the flirtatious logic to an extent that no

Ejaaz:
other AI model provider has done before.

Ejaaz:
So far, it's always been a conversation on ethics and human alignment and using

Ejaaz:
AI as some kind of productive tool to help you

Ejaaz:
do your work, do some research, figure out a recipe to cook or whatever that might be.

Ejaaz:
This is the first time we're seeing it at an entertainment level that goes beyond

Ejaaz:
just creating random videos, right?

Ejaaz:
This is taking human relationships to an extent where it becomes consumptive, right?

Ejaaz:
I think we first saw this with a company called Character AI, where you could

Ejaaz:
go on this website and you could talk to famous animated or cartoon characters

Ejaaz:
that had the personalities of the characters that you've seen on movies,

Ejaaz:
but now you could just talk to them and have this kind of written conversation with them.

Ejaaz:
This AI companion from Grok, from XAI, seems to take it to the next level. What do you think?

Josh:
Yeah, it's following a directional trend. That seems right. It's just a lot

Josh:
more custom ways of engaging with AI. So we have one world. There's like world

Josh:
building where you're generating images and videos and actual worlds.

Josh:
Then there's this world that is kind of like character building.

Josh:
So now you actually have like real world characters that will probably all merge.

Josh:
And it's this this continued trend towards, I guess, allegiance to the digital

Josh:
realm where you're building up reputations with characters, you're building

Josh:
up these virtual worlds with imagine that we're going to get to where it could

Josh:
actually generate videos.

Josh:
It seems very much like a natural progression and a natural urge,

Josh:
a natural human urge where you kind of want to connect. You connect much better

Josh:
with a visual of a person than you do with a chat box. So when I'm engaging

Josh:
with AI, if I have a person speaking with me, it just makes it a little more exciting.

Josh:
And it also has this novel feature, right, where you've never really been able

Josh:
to engage with a digital presence this well, with this low latency and this much IQ.

Josh:
You so for the first time ever you're actually able to engage with a robot that,

Josh:
is able to give you sensical answers and a lot of times very flirty answers

Josh:
and very compelling answers and i think there's just a lot of natural intrigue with that i'm not sure

Josh:
how long that lasts but it is certainly very strong now because this is the

Josh:
i mean it's the first time ever that anyone has kind of like ripped the doors

Josh:
off and allowed this to happen.

Ejaaz:
Well one thought that i had when this released josh was not only like how it

Ejaaz:
affects human to ai relationships

Ejaaz:
but maybe ai to ai relationships right and there's actually a fun demo which

Ejaaz:
demonstrates this justine moore she goes my favorite new tv show is watching

Ejaaz:
the grok ai companions flirt with each other

Ejaaz:
things got off to an awkward start when valentine got annie annie's the the

Ejaaz:
female ai companions name wrong but they seem to be repairing the rift i'm just

Ejaaz:
going to play this short clip for us

Josh:
See what people let's hear it you're back how's things going oh hello who's

Josh:
here just the person and I was hoping to see. Now sit.

Ejaaz:
Ani will make your day shine.

Josh:
So, Valentine, what's got you glowing today? Spill it. I'm all ears.

Ejaaz:
Oh, just the usual wandering and wondering.

Josh:
What's Bonnie got planned to make today sparkle?

Ejaaz:
I'm curious.

Josh:
Dish.

Ejaaz:
Bonnie, huh? You trying to give me

Josh:
A new epic.

Ejaaz:
Name, Valentine? I'm sticking with Ani,

Josh:
But I like your style.

Ejaaz:
Today's got this lazy afternoon energy. So it starts off with a mistranslation

Ejaaz:
and Valentine getting her name wrong.

Ejaaz:
But as you can see, it's very, it's picturesque. It's very animated.

Ejaaz:
It is, it's kind of like a weird kind of rom-com character type personality.

Ejaaz:
But I think it goes a little further than the app, right? These characters are

Ejaaz:
present across a range of different form factors. So I've got it pulled up here.

Ejaaz:
This is Valentine's official X page, right? At V.

Ejaaz:
I think when I looked at this page last night, this was at around 2,000 followers.

Ejaaz:
And he's jumped like 30,000 followers in a matter of 12 hours.

Ejaaz:
I guess the point I'm trying to make is

Ejaaz:
Elon is making a really strategic move about building a cult following around

Ejaaz:
these AI personalities.

Ejaaz:
And that's very different from just having hundreds of thousands or millions

Ejaaz:
of users that use your AI model, right? They're interacting with a chat interface. It's very personal.

Ejaaz:
But having some kind of consumptive character element, I think switches that

Ejaaz:
game up a bit. It creates this kind of like stickiness, this addictive kind

Ejaaz:
of product that, well, is great for user retention, right? But also great for

Ejaaz:
onboarding new consumers.

Ejaaz:
I was also thinking about his strategy in terms of like being antagonistic.

Ejaaz:
I think XAI has repeatedly been the company to implement AI in a very non-conforming way, right?

Ejaaz:
This goes from even like their infrastructure that they started building two years ago.

Ejaaz:
And remember, they were massively behind. All the other AI companies had a massive head start.

Ejaaz:
And in the space of two years, they're now like, they're leading the frontier model at this point.

Ejaaz:
And I'm seeing the same thing with these characters as well they're kind of

Ejaaz:
antagonistic they kind of break the soft rules which no one really wants to

Ejaaz:
talk about and i think that that's a huge moat that we're seeing here

Ejaaz:
it also builds up a super valuable data set for the users that are interacting

Ejaaz:
with these companions i think they're going to divulge more information and

Ejaaz:
this data can be used to train

Ejaaz:
the newer models that come out which make it so it's like this self-fulfilling

Ejaaz:
loop essentially of making a better ai and it's done indirectly through these new consumer products

Josh:
Yeah what What you're seeing is this kind of divergence between,

Josh:
a lot of the different approaches the companies take. XAI is maximally truth-seeking.

Josh:
So with that comes truth-seeking and not kind of these guard-railed parameters

Josh:
on safety and alignment.

Josh:
I think a lot of companies, they want to ensure that the model is delivered in a safe way.

Josh:
XAI just wants to give you the truth, even if it is a hard truth.

Josh:
And I think those two ways of framing it will scale very differently and you'll

Josh:
see very vastly different results in the products that they release.

Josh:
And this is the first version of that. But this isn't the only product they've

Josh:
released this week. They also released this new product called Imagine.

Josh:
And Imagine is pretty freaking cool because Imagine is an image and video generation

Josh:
app, but it does so faster than anything else.

Josh:
So I think when we think of VO3, when we think of ChatGPT's image generation,

Josh:
it does it very well, but it takes a little while. I remember if anyone's ever

Josh:
generated an image on ChatGPT, it kind of looks like you're generating an image

Josh:
over dial-up connection.

Josh:
It kind of like, it gives you this gradient and then it fills in a little detail

Josh:
and it takes maybe a minute or two to actually generate an image.

Josh:
Well, Grok decided to take the other side of that and they said,

Josh:
how quickly can we generate an image? How quickly can we generate a video?

Josh:
And they've actually gotten it down to just a couple of seconds.

Josh:
Now, it's important to know this is not the final form for Grok's video generation.

Josh:
This is the lightweight version. This one is optimized for speed.

Josh:
The heavyweight version is coming out next month. That will be optimized for quality.

Josh:
So I'm very excited for the maximally quality seeking image generation.

Josh:
But for now we have speed and we have a couple cool demos that we can actually

Josh:
try but he says did you have takes have you tried it out what do you think about

Josh:
this new image generation model because i use it and it's really fun.

Ejaaz:
So what I love about it is I can get brand new video in 10 to 15 seconds.

Ejaaz:
And I was one of the earlier users of some of these early text to video models

Ejaaz:
like Midjourney or Google VO2.

Ejaaz:
And I remember just being so annoyed and frustrated at having to wait like minutes

Ejaaz:
for this like brand new toy, this new magical.

Ejaaz:
It like took away from the experience. So I think Elon's strategy of just giving

Ejaaz:
you what you want super quickly is amazing.

Ejaaz:
Also, they keep giving you endless generations. Have you noticed that, Josh?

Ejaaz:
Like if I typed a request to basically create a sunset that then dripped down

Ejaaz:
like orange color into like an orange juice glass. So it's as if the sun is

Ejaaz:
melting into an orange juice glass.

Ejaaz:
And it gave me endless iterations. Not only that, I could click and watch a

Ejaaz:
video and then edit that specific video all within like 30 seconds.

Ejaaz:
I could get like three different iterations. So I love, love, love that.

Ejaaz:
What I will say, if I was being critical, though, is it's not as good as Google

Ejaaz:
VO3 or some of the newer Chinese text-to-video LLMs.

Ejaaz:
And the reason behind that, I think it's just it hasn't gotten a chance to get

Ejaaz:
to that higher fidelity. But as you said, they're releasing a heavier version

Ejaaz:
next month. So I think we're going to see a much better upgraded version soon.

Josh:
Yes. So what I would like to do right now is give a demo. So on screen for the

Josh:
people who are watching on YouTube, we have, this is the interface.

Josh:
This is what Imagine looks like.

Josh:
And I'm going to generate, I'm actually going to speak what I wanted to do.

Josh:
So maybe we'll go with generate me an image of a microphone sitting on top of

Josh:
the Empire State Building.

Josh:
And what you'll see is I already have these images being generated right now.

Josh:
And it looks pretty good. And you could kind of scroll through and it'll continue to generate them.

Josh:
So now what I'll say is put that microphone in outer space and give it,

Josh:
have it sit inside of a roadster. Oh,

Josh:
it put it inside of a roaster not a roadster so now we have a microphone sitting

Josh:
in a roaster in space and you should kind of scroll through and see and it's

Josh:
interesting because let's say i click one of these you could actually select

Josh:
the option that makes it a video so

Josh:
as i'm talking to you right now it's generating a video it's 21 through and

Josh:
it's going to take this microphone that's sitting in a roaster that's in outer

Josh:
space and it's going to animate it

Josh:
and what's interesting is while we wait for this to load is it actually will

Josh:
generate videos on top of your existing images so last night.

Josh:
So here's our video. It's showing a moving galaxy. And I'll also show a demo

Josh:
from last night where I was standing outside in Brooklyn.

Josh:
And I took a photo of the moon, which was perfectly aligned over the Williamsburg Bridge.

Josh:
And what it did is it actually generated me a video where the cars are going across it.

Josh:
The bridge is all lit up. It actually took the lights and it turned them green.

Josh:
So it kind of looks Christmas themed.

Josh:
And it just made it look like a moving video. And you could actually do this

Josh:
with people. You could do this with any images that you have.

Josh:
It'll take the existing image and generate a live moving video so that is the

Josh:
demo it is very cool if you have access to it i highly suggest trying it out

Josh:
they've been rolling it out quickly but yeah the imagine feature rocks do you

Josh:
have any have you used it for anything interesting.

Ejaaz:
Yeah well actually a lot of other people have used it for some interesting things

Ejaaz:
okay so let's look at some of these examples over here we have

Ejaaz:
what looks like an ai generated kind of landscape shot with like the sun setting,

Ejaaz:
we've got the ocean, we've got some cliffs in the distance

Ejaaz:
and it's kind of like a rolling camera footage going forwards.

Ejaaz:
Okay, it looks pretty good.

Ejaaz:
I think, you know, if this is like the worst version, then I can't wait to see

Ejaaz:
what the higher fidelity version looks like, Josh.

Josh:
As a Sunset Carnessori, that is 10 out of 10.

Ejaaz:
Yep. We have what looks like an image of someone that was posing with his foot

Ejaaz:
on this kind of dead mock-up skeleton that's laying on the ground and it's animated

Ejaaz:
to him to be moving and stomping on him.

Ejaaz:
So that's hilarious. This guy's like dressed up as like a knave from like the medieval century.

Ejaaz:
We have, oh, okay, this is interesting. We have someone that's taken an image

Ejaaz:
of his mother who unfortunately he lost two decades ago.

Ejaaz:
And he said, every time I watched Harry Potter and saw their moving photos,

Ejaaz:
I wish I had something like that of her today.

Ejaaz:
And that's exactly what he did with Grok. And he's got this image of him as

Ejaaz:
a kid with his dad and his mom.

Ejaaz:
And he's animated it or used Grok Imagine to create a video of his mom waving at him.

Ejaaz:
Josh, I don't know if you have any thoughts on this. I mean,

Ejaaz:
this is incredibly sentimental and woeful to an extent, but it's also super

Ejaaz:
powerful. I can't imagine what that would be like for someone,

Ejaaz:
you know, kind of like who's lost his mother.

Josh:
Yeah, this is a really powerful use case for these sentimental experiences where

Josh:
I've seen a lot of people also, you can kind of rebuild old images.

Josh:
So if you have old images of loved ones that are looking bad or they're just

Josh:
really low resolution, it'll actually take a lot of the structural features

Josh:
of the person and then generate a high fidelity version of that.

Josh:
And what's interesting is, is if you feed it enough context,

Josh:
it can essentially regenerate the person up to an extent.

Josh:
So when you think about us right now, we're recording this podcast,

Josh:
we're sharing a lot of our thoughts, we have a lot of written things,

Josh:
the AI can collect a lot of data on what makes us us, it understands my cadence

Josh:
when I speak, it understands the vocabulary that I use.

Josh:
And there is a world in which it will just recompile me

Josh:
after me so it knows what i look like it knows what i think and you could kind

Josh:
of create these digital forms of your loved ones i mean what we're seeing on

Josh:
screen now is this very rudimentary version that it takes a still photo it animates

Josh:
it it makes the person feel alive and and for someone who cares about the person the photo that's

Josh:
that's really meaningful but what if you take it even further what if you you

Josh:
fed it the journal entries of this person or a recording of this person or an

Josh:
actual video where you can get a full 360 scan of the person it creates a lot of,

Josh:
interesting use cases that i'm not sure if they're good or bad being able to recreate.

Ejaaz:
People it kind of kind of reminds me of that black mirror episode from the last

Ejaaz:
season actually where he's kind of like exploring old memories of his ex-girlfriend to kind of like

Ejaaz:
kind of like see what it was like during that time when he was his younger self

Ejaaz:
super interesting if we keep this going oh we see someone has used grok imagine

Ejaaz:
to recreate the american eagle viral campaign that

Ejaaz:
happened last week with sydney sweeney and he's got multiple different celebrities

Ejaaz:
uh in this video uh we've got zendaya oh

Ejaaz:
we've got sorry we've got zendaya here

Ejaaz:
Who else have we got anyone famous i i'm guessing elon pops up here some somewhere oh here we go

Ejaaz:
there he is he's holding a rooster that kind of doesn't look like elon but it

Ejaaz:
kind of does as well so okay we've got like people messing around with advertising

Ejaaz:
here we've got people kind of like reenacting old medieval paintings i think

Ejaaz:
there's yeah there's a couple here there's like a

Ejaaz:
someone's got an older picture of a famous boxer and kind of like animating him to box

Ejaaz:
we've got the famous dreamy night scene from Van Gogh that has now been animated

Ejaaz:
to be a real life scene depicting the man on a bicycle kind of cycling through the scene.

Ejaaz:
So loads of artistic expressions here.

Ejaaz:
Someone's drawing over here that's become like animated and lifelike.

Ejaaz:
I think that we are going to start to see

Ejaaz:
Lots of different ways that this is expressed across video content,

Ejaaz:
but also like just like social media content in general.

Ejaaz:
And I think that's only made possible because it's so quick,

Ejaaz:
Josh, because it's so cheap and accessible to anyone and everyone.

Ejaaz:
Also, it's on X as well. So you can just share this immediately after you've

Ejaaz:
like generated it from your Grog app.

Ejaaz:
I think there's even a function or a feature that gets you to post directly

Ejaaz:
on X. So he's got this whole kind of like funnel built out, which allows you

Ejaaz:
to not just create and enjoy AI content, but share it with the world

Josh:
Yeah speed and latency are paramount just how fast you can generate these things

Josh:
and also how fast you can iterate on this software so just today actually they've

Josh:
released two updates to the imagine software stack

Josh:
and they're averaging about one to two updates pushed these models every single day

Josh:
they're iterating very quickly they're pushing code very quickly they're it's

Josh:
clear that they're not afraid to push changes to production at a rapid rate

Josh:
so what i imagine we'll continue to see is the rate of acceleration will just

Josh:
go through the roof as we've seen with grok before where

Josh:
they'll iterate on these features next month we'll get the grok heavy image

Josh:
gen which will be a bit slower but much much higher fidelity i assume something

Josh:
arrival vo3 or even better

Josh:
and we're just going to continue along this progression but i think the interesting

Josh:
things we can take away from this episode are that they are not afraid to try

Josh:
something drastically different for the sake of virality or a winning product

Josh:
the companions are really impressively

Josh:
different and also good where for the first time ever you can actually communicate

Josh:
with a robot and the robot will say interesting things back and you can have

Josh:
a real conversation with this virtual being and you've never been able to do

Josh:
that before and then in the case of imagine.

Josh:
You can actually just generate an infinite amount of images.

Josh:
And it's funny, one of my friends is having a wedding soon and she needed cocktail

Josh:
drinks. So she had it generate a bunch of cocktail drinks to use on the menu.

Josh:
And it generates them in 10 seconds and they're not the best,

Josh:
but give them a little bit of time and they will be.

Josh:
So I think directionally, this is where Grok is heading. It's just the model

Josh:
will get better at an exceedingly faster and faster rate. And because they're

Josh:
not afraid to push the boundaries out of what is perceived to be acceptable,

Josh:
they will continue to win on the spirality front because that's what does well.

Josh:
It's the polarizing content, whether it's good or bad, as long as it's getting people talking.

Josh:
And that is what Grok is doing with these last series of updates.

Ejaaz:
It's also what I like, Josh, is that it's consumer facing.

Ejaaz:
I think a lot of like the AI updates that we've spoken about,

Ejaaz:
that we speak about a lot on this show, applies to like really heavy research side of things, right?

Ejaaz:
Like you've got deep research, you've got things that kind of break math olympiads and win gold medals.

Ejaaz:
But I want to use some of this stuff, right?

Ejaaz:
The normal person that kind of sits at home behind his desktop.

Ejaaz:
And what I love about XAI and Grok's approach in general is that they are hyper-focused

Ejaaz:
on consumer apps. And that is just so refreshing and accessible to me.

Ejaaz:
And I think that's great.

Ejaaz:
Folks, if you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, and subscribe.

Ejaaz:
And share it with your friends. We want feedback.

Ejaaz:
We want to know what you guys want to hear more of.

Ejaaz:
So keep listening to our shows. We've got a new guest show coming out next Monday.

Ejaaz:
And we'll see you on the next one.

Josh:
Yeah, thanks a lot for watching, see you soon.