Grok on X: every place the chatbot shows up in the app

The Grok tab

The most direct way to use Grok on X is the Grok tab. On x.com or in the X app, tap the Grok icon in the navigation bar. On the web it sits in the sidebar. X’s help center says it is available on iOS, Android and the web in every country where X operates.

Chats in the Grok tab are private to you. Nobody else on X sees them, which makes the tab the right place for personal questions. It works much like the standalone Grok app; our guide on how to use Grok covers prompts and modes.

Grok on X is made by SpaceXSI (formerly xAI), which, like X, now sits under SpaceX. On paid plans, the Grok tab draws from the same usage pool as the Grok apps and Cursor.

Explain this post

Many posts show a small Grok icon in the top-right corner. Tapping it asks Grok to explain the post and its context, such as who is involved, what a meme refers to or why a topic is trending.

The feature has existed since at least January 2025. X’s help center does not currently document who gets it, so it may not show for every account or every post.

Tagging @grok in replies

You can also reply to any post with “@grok” and a question. Grok reads the post and the thread above it, then replies publicly in the same thread. X launched this in March 2025, and it is now one of the most visible ways people use Grok.

The key difference from the Grok tab is visibility: your question and Grok’s answer are public. Around March 2026, @grok replies were reportedly limited to Premium and Premium+ subscribers, without a formal announcement. Our step-by-step guide explains how to ask @grok and when it helps.

Grok in X Chat and your privacy

X Chat, X’s direct messaging, is end-to-end encrypted. You can add @Grok to a conversation, but that changes the privacy picture.

Two other privacy controls matter on X:

• Training opt-out: Settings, then Privacy and Safety, then Data sharing and personalization, then Grok and Third-party Collaborators. Uncheck the Data Sharing box to keep your public data and Grok chats out of training.
• History deletion: on the same settings area, Grok, then Delete Conversation History. X says it is removed within 30 days, unless kept for security or legal reasons.

Our Grok privacy guide covers these settings in more detail.

Stories and news summaries

X’s Explore section includes “Stories,” which use Grok to summarize trending news. X launched them in 2024.

These summaries are machine-written from posts, and they can be wrong. In April 2024, Grok’s news summaries presented a false story about an Iranian attack on Israel as real. Treat a Grok summary as a starting point and check the original reporting. Our glossary explains why AI models hallucinate.

Free vs paid limits on X

Since October 12, 2026, Grok on X is part of the X Subscription, which bundles Grok, Cursor and X Premium perks.

How the reported March 2026 Premium-only rule for @grok maps to the new Free and Plus tiers is unconfirmed. For the full plan breakdown, see Is Grok free?

@grok vs @bot

Two different accounts can show up when people tag Grok on X, and they do different jobs.

Grok Bot runs persistent “Bots” on a cloud computer. Since August 29, 2026 it can connect to X to search posts, read your timeline, check mentions, pull trends and manage bookmarks. Tagging @bot is not available for accounts in the EU, UK, Australia, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway. No official page compares the two accounts, so this table is drawn from each product’s own pages. Learn more on our Grok Bot guide.

Questions people ask