Pressing the button starts a voice conversation
"Grok Bot," the AI agent from SpaceXAI (formerly xAI), an AI company under SpaceX, can now be assigned to the "Action button" on the side of the iPhone, the company announced through its official account on Oct. 19 (Oct. 20 Japan time). Pressing the button immediately starts a voice conversation with the Bot. In a video released with the announcement, pressing the button brings up an in-call indicator at the top of the screen, with mute and end buttons.
In a follow-up post, the official account laid out the setup steps: update the app to version 1.16, choose "Shortcut" under the Action button item in the iPhone's settings, and assign Grok Bot's "Start voice conversation." The Action button is available on iPhone 15 Pro and later models. On the same day, Elon Musk, who leads the company, posted that Grok Bot may become users' favorite employee.
An agent that keeps working after the conversation ends
Grok Bot is an agent that gives each user a dedicated computer in the cloud and carries out tasks rather than only answering questions. It keeps working after the app is closed and notifies the user's smartphone when approval is needed. In October, it added an email inbox dedicated to the Bot and alias addresses that can change its behavior depending on the recipient. A Tesla engineer posted on Oct. 10 that the Bot can now also be summoned by voice from Tesla vehicles.
Grok Bot is included in "X Subscription," X's paid plan that launched on Oct. 12. The plan has tiers ranging from free to $200 a month, bundles the AI "Grok," the AI coding tool "Cursor" and X's paid features, and shares a Grok usage allowance. In Canada, using it requires a paid plan starting at 34.99 Canadian dollars a month.
ChatGPT and Gemini compete for the same button
Voice conversations with ChatGPT and Google's Gemini can also be assigned to the Action button. Canada's iPhone in Canada reported that those are mainly for conversation, while Grok Bot differs in that it can turn spoken requests into tasks that span apps and the web. It named OpenAI's always-on agent "dots" as the closest competitor. For basic device operations such as alarms and messages, Apple's "Siri" has the advantage, it said.
Elon Musk, who leads the company, revealed on Nov. 1 (Nov. 2 Japan time) that the cost of providing Grok Bot had been unsustainably high relative to revenue, and some users have hit usage limits partway through the week. At an earnings call two weeks earlier, he had said paid weekly users had reached 800,000.
