---
title: Grok
description: 'The language and multimodal model family introduced by xAI, also used as the name of its assistant and related products.'
canonical_url: 'https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/grok'
markdown_url: 'https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/grok.md'
collection: glossary
date_published: '2026-10-07T00:00:00-04:00'
date_modified: '2026-10-07T00:00:00-04:00'
---

# Grok


## Definition

Grok is a family of language and multimodal models introduced by xAI. The name also identifies the Grok assistant and related products. A Grok model produces outputs from supplied inputs; an assistant can add search, connectors, conversation state, and interfaces around that model.

An answer generated with X Search or Web Search uses information supplied by a tool. The API documentation requires those search tools to be enabled for current information.

## Origin and attribution

The xAI team announced Grok in November 2023 and identified Grok-1 as the model powering the original assistant. The announcement credits the team.

On March 17, 2024, xAI released Grok-1's base weights and architecture under Apache 2.0. That checkpoint came from pretraining and had not been tuned for dialogue. Current API documentation is published under the SpaceXAI name.

## Scope and limitations

Grok includes multiple checkpoints with their own capabilities and access terms. The Grok-1 release documents a mixture-of-experts base model; later releases need their own architecture and weight-access evidence.

The current API catalog distinguishes chat models from voice and media services. It also states that current information requires enabled search tools. A dated model identifier and a moving alias can resolve differently over time. Record which identifier, tools, and reasoning configuration produced a result.

Search access can retrieve mistaken or adversarial material, and a fluent answer can still contain false claims. The original announcement explicitly acknowledged false and contradictory output. Evaluate the exact deployment on the task it will perform.

## Operational significance

Keep model selection separate from application permissions. A Grok-backed assistant may find an account or propose a change, while the factory still decides whether that action is allowed. An evaluation of the hosted assistant should preserve its tool configuration; testing the model without those tools measures a different system.

## Distinguish it from nearby terms

- A chatbot is an application interface. Grok can name such an interface or the model behind it.
- An open-weight model distributes trained parameters. Grok-1's release supports that description for its checkpoint, without making it a family-wide access promise.
- A reasoning model describes inference behavior. Grok identifies a product family whose supported reasoning settings depend on the release.

## Check your understanding

An evaluation says Grok answered today's news correctly. Which model identifier, search settings, retrieved sources, and application behavior must you know before reproducing that result?

## Also called

Grok model family

## Related terms

- [Large language model (LLM)](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/large-language-model)
- [Multimodal model](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/multimodal-model)
- [Reasoning model](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/reasoning-model)
- [Chatbot](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/chatbot)
- [Open-weight model](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/open-weight-model)
- [Proprietary model](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/proprietary-model)
- [Mixture of experts (MoE)](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/mixture-of-experts)
- [Hallucination](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/hallucination)
- [Model routing](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/model-routing)
- [Grok Bot](https://darkfactory.dev/glossary/grok-bot)

## Related factory areas

- [Model selection, routing & budgets](https://darkfactory.dev/factory/model-routing-budgets)
- [Tools & project interfaces](https://darkfactory.dev/factory/tools-interfaces)
- [Verification, evaluation & quality truth](https://darkfactory.dev/factory/verification)

## Evidence and further reading

- [xAI: Announcing Grok](https://x.ai/news/grok)
- [xAI: Open Release of Grok-1](https://x.ai/news/grok-os)
- [SpaceXAI: Grok models](https://docs.x.ai/developers/models)
- [SpaceXAI: Welcome to Grok](https://docs.x.ai/grok/overview)