xAI Releases Free Grok 4.1 Chatbot Update

xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, released an updated version of its Grok chatbot on November 17, 2025, making the new Grok 4.1 model available to all users for free on platforms including grok.com, the social media site X, and iOS and Android apps. The upgrade aims to enhance the model's performance in creative, emotional, and collaborative tasks, positioning it as a more empathetic and reliable tool compared to its predecessor.

The release introduces two variants: Grok 4.1 and Grok 4.1 Thinking, both built on the large-scale reinforcement learning infrastructure of the earlier Grok 4 model. According to xAI, the update incorporates incremental improvements that reduce the rate of hallucinations, instances where the model generates inaccurate information, by a factor of three. This addresses a common challenge in large language model development through targeted training enhancements. The company also described the model as faster and better at real-world reasoning, with responses that are more natural and engaging.

In internal tests during a silent rollout from November 1 to 14, users preferred Grok 4.1 over the previous production model about 65...