Grok Beginner Guide: Your First Useful Chat
Grok is xAI’s assistant, closely tied to the X platform, which gives it a distinctive view of what people are talking about right now. Try it free at grok.com, and treat anything time-sensitive as something to verify.
What is it?
Grok is the AI assistant from xAI (recent release notes refer to the company as SpaceXAI). Its latest model at the time of writing is Grok 4.7, released in September 2026 with a 500k-token context window (see our story).
What do you need?
Access via grok.com or the X app. A free tier is available; what it includes changes, so check xAI’s current pages. Trials are occasional and not universal.
Your first useful chat
- Open Grok and start a chat.
- Try a “what’s happening” question: “What are people saying about [TOPIC] today, and how reliable is that?”
- Ask it to separate reported facts from opinion.
- Open any sources it cites.
Give me a balanced summary of what's being discussed about [TOPIC] right now. Separate confirmed facts from opinion and rumour, and list sources I can open to verify.
Limitations
Fast-moving posts are often wrong or one-sided. Treat social-media-based answers as leads to check, not facts.
Common mistakes
- Treating viral posts as verified news.
- Not checking whether a claim has an original source.
What to try next
Browse the prompt vault, and read how to check an AI answer.
Sources
Silent Overseer uses AI tools to help research and draft, and every article is reviewed before publishing. How we work. Spotted a mistake? We correct and date changes.