Grok’s AI companions drove downloads, however its newest mannequin is the one creating wealth | TechCrunch

Grok’s raunchy, unfiltered AI companions could also be making headlines for his or her unhinged and sometimes NSFW responses, but it surely’s Grok 4, xAI’s newest mannequin, that’s been driving the app’s income of late.

Elon Musk’s xAI launched Grok 4 late on July 9, and by Friday, July 11, Grok’s gross income on iOS had jumped a whopping 325% to $419,000, up from $99,000 the day earlier than the Grok 4 launch, based on app intelligence agency Appfigures.

Grok continued to drag in higher-than-usual income within the days following the launch of the brand new mannequin, with gross income within the excessive $367,000s for a few days earlier than dipping all the way down to $310,000 on July 14.

As well as, day by day downloads of the Grok iOS app had elevated 279% to 197,000 by July 11, up from 52,000 earlier than Grok 4 launched.

However following the addition of Grok’s AI companions the subsequent week, on July 14, the soar in downloads and income was much less pronounced. Whereas curiosity in regards to the companions probably drove extra installs, the function isn’t but poised to be a major money-maker for the corporate, regardless of being solely obtainable to “Super Grok” subscribers paying $30 monthly.

Grok’s iOS downloads globally had been up 40% the day after the companions launched, reaching 171,000 day by day installs, however income elevated simply 9%, hitting $337,000.

So whereas it’s clear that there was an influence from the launch, it’s decidedly smaller than the launch of the brand new AI mannequin.

Given Grok’s costly new subscription providing, timed alongside the Grok 4 launch, it’s not shocking to see that even a smaller enhance within the variety of paying subscribers may drive Grok’s iOS income considerably greater.

The corporate introduced that, along with Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy, it will additionally provide a $300-per-month subscription referred to as SuperGrok Heavy, its priciest plan so far. The plan gives subscribers early entry to Grok 4 Heavy and different new options, xAI stated, but it surely’s costlier than comparable plans from different main AI suppliers, together with OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

It’s attention-grabbing to see this demand for Grok’s subscription plans, although the AI was initially consulting Elon Musk’s X posts for solutions. xAI has since addressed this subject.

Curiosity within the new mannequin additionally drove up Grok’s rating on the U.S. App Retailer shortly after its launch, making Grok the No. 3 high app total, and No. 2 within the Productiveness class by July 12.

That curiosity has declined considerably over the previous week — the app is now No. 17 total — although it’s nonetheless No. 2 in Productiveness, Appfigures knowledge reveals.

Appfigures notes that it targeted on iOS knowledge for this evaluation, as that knowledge set is at the moment extra complete than knowledge from Android gadgets. The latter is barely obtainable by way of July 14 in the meanwhile, as Appfigures’ mannequin wants extra time to course of Google Play knowledge.