How to use Grok: a simple guide for beginners

1. Pick where you will use it

• The Grok app on iPhone or Android, or grok.com in a browser. Best for long chats, voice and images.
• The Grok tab on X, or tag Grok under a post to ask about it. Best for “what is going on with this?”
• Grok Build in the terminal, or Cursor, if you write code.

You can start free. If you hit limits often, see Is Grok free? for what each plan adds.

2. Ask well: a simple formula

Grok answers better when you give it the same four things you would give a person:

1. The goal: “Write a two-line reply declining this meeting.”
2. The context: paste the email, the numbers or the link.
3. The format: “as a table”, “in 5 bullet points”, “under 100 words”.
4. The audience or tone: “for a 10-year-old”, “friendly but firm”.

Then follow up. “Shorter”, “more formal” or “give me three other options” usually beats starting again.

3. Everyday things it does well

4. Modes and features worth knowing

• Voice: talk to Grok out loud in the app, hands free.
• Thinking and research modes: for harder questions, Grok can take longer, reason step by step and search the web before answering. Use them for comparisons and research, not for quick facts.
• Imagine: make images and short videos with sound. See Grok Imagine.
• Long documents: the current model, Grok 4.7, can read about 500,000 tokens at once, so you can paste whole reports.
• Personalities and companions: Grok has playful modes, and its animated companions are covered on Grok companions.

5. Coding with Grok

For quick help, paste the error and the code and ask what is wrong and why. For real projects, the same company’s tools are built for it: Grok Build, a terminal agent that can run several coding agents at once, and Cursor, the code editor that is now part of the same company and included in paid plans.

6. When you want it to do the work, not just answer

Chat stops when you stop typing. If you want something done in the background (watch your inbox, file receipts, check a page every morning), that is Grok Bot, the agent version, included from the $30 Premium plan. Start with how it works.

7. Know its limits

Grok can be confidently wrong, especially about recent events, numbers, quotes and anything medical, legal or financial. It sometimes invents sources, a habit AI researchers call hallucination. Even big launches have glitches: in August 2026 some Grok users briefly got gibberish replies, which the company called a rare temporary glitch. Rules that keep you safe:

• Ask for sources, then open them.
• Double-check names, dates, prices and figures before you repeat them.
• Do not paste passwords, card numbers or private health details into a chat.
• For decisions that matter, use Grok to prepare questions for a professional, not to replace one.

Questions people ask