xAI

Jul 31, 2026 modelsproducts

Grok Voice Think Fast 2.0 takes the top spot on speech-to-speech benchmarks

On July 29, 2026, xAI released Grok Voice Think Fast 2.0, which took the top spot on Artificial Analysis' speech-to-speech benchmark with 82.9%, ahead of GPT-Realtime-2.1 at 79.1% and Gemini 3.1 Flash at 69.5%. Time to first audio dropped from 1.25 to 0.70 seconds, transcription errors fell 1.4 to 2x across 24 languages, and pricing sits at $0.08 per minute of audio. The grok-voice-latest alias switches to 2.0 on August 5.

Jul 27, 2026 moneyculture

Musk staffs xAI with Starlink loyalists ahead of a $1.25 trillion listing

A Bloomberg feature based on interviews with about a dozen people familiar with xAI reports that after SpaceX absorbed the company, dozens of employees left, including most cofounders, and Musk redeployed trusted lieutenants from Starlink and Tesla. Longtime Starlink executive Michael Nicolls became xAI president in April with a mandate to catch up with Anthropic's Claude. Per SpaceX's IPO filing, xAI posted a $2.47 billion operating loss on $818 million of revenue in Q1 2026, with AI capex of $7.7 billion in the quarter; the combined listing targets a valuation around $1.25 trillion.

Jul 26, 2026 products

xAI brings Grok to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides as a free add-on

xAI launched a free Grok add-on in the Google Workspace Marketplace on July 24, 2026: one install covers Docs, Sheets and Slides, with no waitlist and no subscription required. It answers questions about spreadsheet data with cell citations, turns outlines into full decks, and drafts documents. A Grok integration for Microsoft Outlook launched three days earlier but sits behind X Premium and SuperGrok plans priced from $8 to $300 a month.

Jul 15, 2026 infrastructurepolicy

xAI runs 59 gas turbines at Colossus 2 without federal clean-air permits

Reuters reported on July 14, 2026, based on correspondence between regulators and xAI representatives, that xAI installed 59 natural gas turbines for its Colossus 2 project in Tennessee without federal clean-air permits, about double the 27 unpermitted turbines acknowledged as of January. At least 57 of the 59 sit just across the state line in Mississippi. A Reuters analysis found 30 turbines alone could emit nearly 2,500 short tons of nitrogen oxide a year if run continuously, far beyond the 100-ton federal permitting threshold. xAI's position is that the permits are not required.