The AI news world is a circus. I swear, you could get whiplash trying to keep up. Every other day there is a new announcement that promises to rearrange the fabric of reality. Most of it is just marketing fluff.
But this latest announcement is actually worth talking about.
xAI just made its top model, Grok 4, free for everyone.
This is the one that, until now, was kept behind the Premium+ paywall. The good stuff. And now they’re just… giving it away.
Well, kind of.
Let’s not be naive. It is a “limited time” offer, which is corporate-speak for “we will start charging for this again whenever we feel like it.” And if you are not a paying subscriber, you get a limited number of goes with it each day.
They are giving you a taste. They want you to see what you are missing. And to be honest, you might be missing a lot.
How to Use Grok 4
Getting started is simple. When you first open Grok, it automatically defaults to Auto Mode, so you can begin typing a question right away.
You can use the powerful Grok 4 model in two different ways: letting Auto Mode decide when to use it, or by taking control and selecting Expert Mode yourself.
Auto Mode vs. Expert Mode: What’s the Real Difference?
Think of it like the camera on your phone.
Auto Mode
Auto Mode is the default, the point-and-shoot setting. You do not have to think about it. As xAI put it, Grok will automatically “route complex queries to Grok 4.” In other words, you just type your question, and the system intelligently decides which engine to use. For simple stuff, it’s fast. For hard stuff, it automatically uses the best model. As the menu says, it “Chooses best mode.”
Expert Mode
Then there is Expert Mode.
This is for when you want to take control. Choosing Expert Mode forces Grok to use the powerful Grok 4 model for every single thing you ask. I love how the menu describes this mode: it “Thinks hard.” This is the one you pick when you have a complicated problem to solve or you just want to see what the model can really do without any restrictions.
So, What Do You Do With It?
This is where it gets interesting… no, scratch that. The whole thing is interesting. This is where you get to play.
Because Grok 4 is connected to the web, its information is not stale. You can ask about things happening right now. You can get it to help you with real problems.
You could ask it to plan a 3-day road trip from Portland to San Francisco, but with a requirement that every stop must have a great donut shop.
You could feed it the transcript of a meeting and ask it to pull out the main action items because you zoned out halfway through. (We have all been there.)
I saw someone use it to write a plausible-sounding new episode of Seinfeld where Jerry gets mad about self-checkout machines. The results were scarily accurate.
The point is to get weird with it. Ask it the things you think a computer could not possibly answer.
Go Break Something
So, here is what you should do.
Download the app or open it on your computer.
Poke it. Prod it. Ask it dumb questions. Ask it brilliant questions. Try to make it write a sonnet about why pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity.
The worst that can happen is you use up your free queries for the day.
The best that can happen is you find a tool that genuinely helps you think, create, or just get a decent laugh. It is a direct line to one of the most powerful thinking machines on the planet.
Go have some fun with it.