Elon Musk Hints Grok 3.5 With 'Significant Upgrades' Is Coming Soon

Elon Musk has confirmed that the next version of xAI’s chatbot will be called Grok 3.5. During a live stream of Path of Exile using Starlink, Musk said “Grok 3.5” is coming out “soonish,” referring to a more polished version of the AI chatbot that counters OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. He said the next version will also pack “a lot of significant upgrades.”

During the live stream, the billionaire entrepreneur also confirmed that Grok 4 — a major upgrade to the AI service — is expected later this year. While his statement comes shortly after reports that Grok 4 is coming soon, Musk did not reveal the details of the upcoming version. However, Grok 3.5 is expected to be a major step toward the launch of Grok 4, which could bring upgrades to reasoning, context memory, response generation, and tighter integration with real-time data on X.

Musk’s announcement follows xAI’s funding spree and renewed focus on ramping up the capabilities of its AI chatbot amid intense competition from rivals such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek. xAI recently acquired X (formerly Twitter) to integrate Grok better with the social media platform for real-time responses. xAI raised $6 billion in a Series C round in December last year, led by Nvidia and AMD. According to Bloomberg, the company now targets over $10 billion in funding this year, aiming for a $75 billion valuation. These funds, the report added, could help the company boost the development of Grok’s upcoming models, invest in computing infrastructure, and expand the team, which includes veterans from OpenAI and DeepMind.

Grok recently surged in popularity, beating ChatGPT to become the most downloaded app on Apple’s App Store. The Studio Ghibli art trend majorly contributed to the app’s downloads, especially when ChatGPT, which was at the frontier of the trend, introduced rate limits on AI image generation.

Read more: iPhone 16 Pro vs Google Pixel 9 Pro: How Do They Compare?