Odaily Planet Daily report: Elon Musk’s AI model, Grok, is falling far behind its rapidly growing competitors. Meanwhile, a large-scale compute leasing agreement between SpaceX and Anthropic has led outsiders to question whether Grok still has a chance to catch up with industry leaders.
Since its launch two years ago, Grok has attracted millions of users through its integration with Musk’s social platform X and controversial features such as the “AI companion.” However, latest data suggests its growth momentum has stalled. According to analytics firm AppMagic, Grok’s downloads dropped to approximately 8.3 million in April this year, down from over 20 million in January.
A survey by research firm Recon Analytics of over 260,000 U.S.-based AI users and professionals found that the proportion of respondents willing to pay for Grok remained virtually unchanged in the second quarter of 2026 at just 0.174%, compared to 0.173% a year earlier. In contrast, over 6% of respondents indicated they had paid for ChatGPT. (Jin10)