How to Use Grok AI in 2026: The Complete Guide

Last Updated: November 1, 2026

To use Grok, go to grok.com or open the Grok app on iOS or Android, sign in, and type your question into the chat box. Grok is free to start, and since October 12, 2026, new users who want more usage buy it through The X Subscription: Plus at $8, Premium at $30, Super at $100 or Ultra at $200 per month, according to SpaceXSI's X Subscription announcement.

Grok's clearest edge over other chatbots is real-time search across the web and X, which x.ai's pricing page lists as a feature of the free plan. That makes Grok the tool to reach for when you need to know what people are saying right now, not what a model learned months ago.

This guide walks through how to use Grok in November 2026: step-by-step setup, what the free plan and each paid plan include, Grok 4.7, real-time X research, voice, file uploads, Grok Imagine, Grok Bot and Grok Build, plus the prompts that work best. Every plan detail and price below comes from SpaceXSI's own pages at x.ai and docs.x.ai, checked November 1, 2026.

You use Grok by signing in at grok.com or in the Grok app and chatting with it the way you would message a colleague. SpaceXSI's Grok documentation says Grok settings and subscriptions sync across grok.com and the iOS and Android apps, so you can start on a laptop and continue on your phone.

How to start using Grok, step by step:

The best first query for a new Grok user is a real-time X question about their own industry. That single prompt shows the thing Grok does that most chatbots cannot.

Grok is available in six places in November 2026, and each one suits a different job:

Sources: X Subscription announcement, Grok docs, Grok Bot docs, Grok Build announcement.

Yes, Grok is free to use. The Free plan costs $0 and includes daily Grok access with limited usage, real-time web and X search, voice mode and connectors, according to SpaceXSI's X Subscription announcement and x.ai's pricing page. SpaceXSI does not publish a fixed number of free Grok messages, so heavy users will eventually need a paid plan.

The X Subscription, launched October 12, 2026, is now how new customers pay for Grok. One X Subscription plan covers Grok, Cursor's coding agents and X, and the paid plans share one weekly usage pool per seat across Grok, Grok Bot and Cursor.

Sources: X Subscription announcement and X Subscription pricing docs. Prices exclude sales tax. Grok usage beyond a plan's allowance is billed at API list prices through prepaid top-ups.

Yes. SpaceXSI says existing SuperGrok, Cursor and X Premium subscribers keep their current plan, price and features unless they change or cancel. Switching to The X Subscription is optional and comes with a prorated refund for unused time on the old plan.

New customers start on The X Subscription rather than SuperGrok, so the cheapest paid way into Grok is now Plus at $8 a month. For every plan, the legacy SuperGrok tiers and API rates, see our Grok AI pricing guide.

Grok 4.7 is the latest Grok model, released September 21, 2026. SpaceXSI's Grok 4.7 announcement says the model is built on a new, larger base model, works longer on difficult tasks, checks its own work more carefully and is better at creating documents and presentations.

Grok 4.7 has a 500,000 token context window and costs $2.00 per million input tokens, $0.50 per million cached input tokens and $6.00 per million output tokens in the API, according to the Grok 4.7 model page. Grok 4.7 requests above 200,000 tokens of context are billed at higher rates, and a fast variant runs at twice the output speed for twice the price.

The Grok 4.7 announcement lists the model in Grok Build, Cursor, the Grok API and third-party coding tools. The announcement does not say which X Subscription tiers get Grok 4.7 inside the Grok chat app, so confirm in your own account which model your plan uses.

Grok 4.7 follows Grok 4.6, which SpaceXSI introduced on August 12, 2026 as a step up from Grok 4.5, according to the x.ai news page. Any Grok guide that still calls Grok 4.5 the current model is out of date.

For token limits on every Grok model and plan, see our Grok context window guide.

To research with Grok, ask it in plain English to search X or the web and tell it the time window you care about. Real-time web and X search is included on Grok's free plan, per x.ai's pricing page, which makes Grok practical for market sentiment, brand monitoring, competitive intelligence and breaking news.

Prompts that get useful X intelligence from Grok:

For market sentiment: "Search X for what investors and analysts are saying about [COMPANY or TICKER] in the last 48 hours. Summarize the dominant sentiment, the most repeated concerns, and any notable analyst voices. Include specific usernames or handles where relevant."

For competitive intelligence: "Search X for what users are saying about [COMPETITOR] this week. What complaints come up most frequently? What features are people praising? What are they asking for that does not exist yet? Format as: Top Complaints, Top Praise, Feature Requests."

For breaking news context: "What is being said on X right now about [NEWS EVENT]? Give me the raw reaction, not just mainstream coverage, but what industry insiders, critics, and affected parties are saying. Distinguish between informed commentary and noise."

For trend identification: "What topics related to [INDUSTRY or TOPIC] are gaining traction on X this week that have not yet appeared in mainstream tech media? I am looking for early signals before they become headlines."

A Grok research prompt for cited answers:

"Search the web and X to research [TOPIC]. I need: 1. A factual summary of the current state (cite sources) 2. Key data points with dates and attribution 3. Where expert consensus is and where it's split 4. What the most recent developments are (last 7 days). Separate confirmed facts from speculation."

Asking Grok for numbered sections and sources forces it to organize the answer so you can check every claim, instead of a narrative that buries the sources.

The honesty check every Grok X result needs:

X data is real-time but not representative. Loud voices on X are not the same as majority opinion, and bot accounts, coordinated campaigns and engagement-farming posts all show up in Grok's X searches. Treat X intelligence from Grok as a signal to investigate, and ask Grok to check X claims against web sources before you act on them.

Grok voice mode lets you hold a hands-free spoken conversation with Grok, and x.ai's pricing page lists voice mode as part of the free plan. Open voice mode in the Grok app and speak instead of typing.

Brainstorming on the move: Talk through ideas while walking or commuting, then have Grok structure them. The prompt: "I am going to think out loud about [TOPIC] for a few minutes. When I say 'organize this,' turn what I said into structured bullet points."

Meeting preparation: Describe the meeting out loud and ask Grok for a preparation framework, key questions to ask and likely objections. Speaking is faster than typing when you have five minutes before a call.

To work with a document in Grok, attach the file to your chat and ask a specific question about it. SpaceXSI's Grok documentation says Grok can analyze, extract from and summarize PDFs, images, spreadsheets, code, audio and other files.

Grok connectors let Grok use your other tools inside a chat. The Grok docs list connectors for Google Drive, Gmail and Google Calendar, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams and Salesforce, plus custom MCP tunneling for internal systems.

A practical Grok file prompt: "Here is our Q3 sales report. Summarize the three biggest changes from last quarter, flag any number that looks inconsistent, and list five questions my CFO is likely to ask."

Grok Imagine is Grok's image and video generator, and you use it by describing the image or clip you want. Image and video generation is part of The X Subscription, and SpaceXSI released Imagine Image 2.0, focused on precise image generation and editing, on August 7, 2026, according to the x.ai news page.

Grok Imagine also works from your own pictures. SpaceXSI added reference support to video generation with Imagine Video 1.5 with References on July 31, 2026, and the Imagine documentation covers image editing, image-to-video, video editing and video extension.

Prompt structure for better Grok images: "Generate a [STYLE: photorealistic / illustrated / minimalist] image of [SUBJECT] with [LIGHTING: natural daylight / studio / dramatic] lighting. The tone should be [TONE: professional / creative / editorial]. This is for [PURPOSE: LinkedIn post / presentation / marketing material / internal use]."

Editing an existing image: Upload the image and describe the change, for example: "Here is our current product photo. Remove the background, add a gradient from [COLOR] to [COLOR], and add a subtle drop shadow." Grok Imagine takes plain-English editing requests, so you do not need Photoshop-level instructions.

Image-to-video: Upload a still image and describe the motion you want. Grok Imagine animates from your starting frame, which is useful for social posts and presentations.

Grok Bot gives you AI teammates that work on their own persistent cloud computer, with a browser, filesystem and terminal, and that build up context over time. SpaceXSI launched Grok Bot in beta on August 11, 2026, and Grok Bot is included in The X Subscription's Premium, Super and Ultra plans, per the Grok Bot docs.

How to start with Grok Bot:

Grok Bot can also be started from X: tag @bot in a post or reply to begin a task. That option requires a connected X account and is not available in every region, according to the Grok Bot docs.

Grok Bot is also included with legacy SuperGrok, SuperGrok Plus, SuperGrok Heavy and X Premium+ subscriptions, every paid individual Cursor plan, Cursor Teams and self-serve Grok Business seats. Under The X Subscription, Grok Bot work draws from the same weekly usage pool as Grok and Cursor.

Recurring jobs worth handing to Grok Bot: The Grok Bot docs cover skills, routines and automations, so repeat briefings like these are a natural fit.

Daily market intelligence brief: "Every weekday morning at 7 AM, search X and the web for the most important AI industry news from the last 24 hours. Summarize in five bullet points with source links. Flag anything that would affect [COMPANY or INDUSTRY]."

Competitive monitoring: "Every Monday, search X and the web for news about [COMPETITOR]. Summarize: new product announcements, leadership changes, customer sentiment shifts, and any major coverage from the prior week."

Industry trend alert: "Every Friday, identify the three emerging topics in [INDUSTRY] gaining X traction this week that have not yet appeared in mainstream coverage. Rate each 1 to 10 for potential strategic relevance."

Grok Build is SpaceXSI's coding agent, and it comes in two forms: a builder inside Grok chat that turns a description into a working app, and a terminal tool for developers. Since August 19, 2026, Grok Build in chat has been available on every plan on the web, iOS and Android, according to SpaceXSI's Grok Build announcement.

To use Grok Build in chat, describe what you want, such as a dashboard, website, game or internal tool, and Grok builds it live. SpaceXSI says finished Grok Build projects can be published to a grok.me link, remixed, given a custom domain or exported to GitHub.

To use Grok Build in the terminal, install it with curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash on macOS, Linux or WSL, or irm https://x.ai/cli/install.ps1 | iex in Windows PowerShell. Then run grok inside your project folder. The first launch opens a browser to sign in, and grok -p "Explain this codebase" runs Grok Build headless in scripts.

The Grok Build docs name grok-4.7 as the latest model and list features including plan mode, subagents, MCP servers, hooks, sandboxing, worktrees and background tasks.

A starter Grok Build prompt: "Build a one-page dashboard that tracks our weekly newsletter signups by source, with a line chart and a table, and let me paste in new numbers every Monday."

DeepSearch, Think Mode, Big Brain Mode, Tasks and Companions do not appear on SpaceXSI's current Grok product pages. As of November 1, 2026, x.ai's pricing page and the Grok docs describe real-time web and X search, voice, Grok Imagine, file uploads, connectors, Grok Bot and Grok Build instead, and the pricing page still lists Expert as a SuperGrok feature.

The jobs those older Grok features handled still have a home. Ask Grok directly to search the web and X for cited research, ask it to reason step by step when a problem is complex, and hand recurring briefings to Grok Bot. If your Grok app still shows an older toggle, it is fine to use, but avoid building a workflow on a feature SpaceXSI no longer documents.

The best Grok prompts play to what Grok does differently: real-time X data, live web search and fast synthesis of both. A generic prompt that works the same in ChatGPT or Claude does not use what makes Grok useful.

For competitive intelligence: "Search X and web for everything published about [COMPETITOR] in the last 7 days. I need: product updates they announced, customer reactions (positive and negative), hiring signals from job postings or LinkedIn activity, and any executive commentary. Format as an intelligence brief I can send to my leadership team."

For market research: "I am evaluating the [INDUSTRY] market in [GEOGRAPHY]. Search the web and X to find: the current market size with source, the three fastest-growing segments, the top three companies by market share, and what the X conversation reveals about customer pain points that market reports miss. Cite every data point."

For content ideation with real-time signals: "Search X for the most discussed questions and frustrations in [TOPIC AREA] this week. Identify the five questions being asked most frequently that have no good existing answers in published content. These are content opportunities."

For decision support: "Think through this step by step and help me decide [DECISION]. My constraints are [CONSTRAINTS]. My goals are [GOALS]. The stakeholders I need to satisfy are [STAKEHOLDERS]. Give me the recommendation you would make with full confidence in this context, then give me the strongest counterargument to it."

For research with X context: "Here is last year's market report [paste content]. Search the web for 2026 updates on each category, and include what the X conversation reveals about how these trends are actually playing out in practice versus what the reports say."

All five Grok prompts share three habits: they name the sources (X, the web or both), set a time window and specify the output format. A Grok prompt that skips those three details usually gets a general answer any chatbot could give.

Use Grok when the answer depends on what is happening right now on X or the web, or when you want Grok Bot and Grok Build in the same subscription as your chatbot. For long-form writing, many professionals keep ChatGPT or Claude alongside Grok and choose the tool per task.

For the full head-to-head, see our Grok vs ChatGPT comparison. For everything Grok can do across text, images, video and code, see our Grok AI capabilities guide.

Start on Grok's Free plan, move to Plus at $8 a month if you hit limits on chat alone, and choose Premium at $30 once you want Grok Bot or Cursor Pro. Super and Ultra make sense only if you run Grok Bot or Cursor agents for hours every week.

The usage math favors the bigger Grok plans. Based on SpaceXSI's published usage multiples, Plus costs $8 per unit of included usage, Premium $7.50 (4x for $30), Super about $6.67 (15x for $100) and Ultra $4.00 (50x for $200). Ultra delivers twice the usage per dollar of Plus.

Annual billing saves two months on every paid X Subscription plan: Plus is $80 a year instead of $96, Premium $300 instead of $360, Super $1,000 instead of $1,200 and Ultra $2,000 instead of $2,400.

A $30 Premium plan now covers what SpaceXSI says used to cost $90 a month as three separate subscriptions: SuperGrok, Cursor Pro and X Premium+.

Grok AI Pricing 2026
Every X Subscription tier, legacy SuperGrok plan and Grok API rate in one place.

Grok AI Capabilities 2026
What Grok can do across chat, research, images, video and code.

Grok Context Window 2026
Token limits for Grok 4.7 and every other Grok model.

Grok vs ChatGPT: Full Comparison 2026
Head to head on features, pricing and real business use.

How do I use Grok AI?
Go to grok.com or open the Grok app on iOS or Android, sign in, and type your question in the chat box. Ask Grok to search X or the web when you need current information, attach files for analysis, or use voice mode for a hands-free conversation. Source: Grok docs

Is Grok free?
Yes. Grok's Free plan costs $0 and includes daily Grok access with limited usage, real-time web and X search, and voice mode. Paid X Subscription plans start at $8 a month for Plus. Source: X Subscription announcement

What is the latest Grok model?
Grok 4.7, released September 21, 2026, is the latest Grok model. Grok 4.7 has a 500,000 token context window and costs $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens in the API. Source: Grok 4.7 model page

What is Grok Bot?
Grok Bot is SpaceXSI's AI teammate product: each Bot works on its own persistent cloud computer, signs into your tools and completes multi-step jobs. Grok Bot is included in The X Subscription's Premium, Super and Ultra plans and runs on desktop, iOS and Android. Source: Grok Bot docs

Can I still use SuperGrok?
Yes. Existing SuperGrok subscribers can keep their current plan, price and features. New customers start on The X Subscription, and switching from SuperGrok is optional, with a prorated refund for unused time. Source: X Subscription docs

Grok in November 2026 is more than a chatbot. The same Grok account now reaches real-time X and web search, voice, Grok Imagine, Grok Bot teammates and Grok Build, and The X Subscription bundles all of it with Cursor and X perks.

The best way to learn Grok is still the free plan. Run a few real-time X queries about your own market, upload a report you know well, and see whether Grok's answers change what you would do. If you hit the free limit in the first week, Plus at $8 or Premium at $30 is the next step.

Grok works best as one part of a stack: Grok for live intelligence, agents and quick builds, and whichever writing assistant you prefer for polished long-form work.

Written by the AI Business Weekly Editorial Team. Reviewed, edited and published by Sameer Khan. This article was AI-assisted, then reviewed by Sameer Khan before publishing.