Grok 4 Review: Innovations, Issues, and Its Place in the AI Race

Grok 4 is by far xAI’s boldest attempt against the domination of ChatGPT and Claude in the AI assistant space. With promises of unfiltered conversation, this latest iteration of the Grok chatbot is Elon Musk’s vision of an AI truly free from the usual safety constraints. But like any cutting edge technology, it is still finding its rhythm. Early feedback reveals a blend of standout strengths and a few quirks that remind us that even the smartest AI is a work in progress. 

Grok 4’s Performance So Far

Early impressions reveal two sides of Groke 4: impressive technical brilliance paired with moments of inconsistency that keep users on their toes. 

What Grok 4 Does Well:

1. Custom Game Creation Using Grok 4

Source: @measure_plan

Grok 4 is a marvel of creative game development, whereby users can conceptualize and then, based on very little input, even develop interactive experiences. The Grok AI is capable of understanding game mechanics, UI design, and engagement principles at a very sophisticated level. A user should be able to describe a fairly simple game concept and they will receive back an elaborated design document complete with character design presentations, level progression systems, and monetization strategies. Unlike simpler text-based adventures, the AI can tackle complex multiplayer scenarios and a wide variety of applications, making it almost indispensable to indie developers and creative professionals looking for a fast track to prototyping. 

2. Acts Like a McKinsey Consultant – Without the Price Tag

One of Grok 4’s most impressive real-world uses is its strategic business consulting feature. This AI can act as a virtual business consultant and offer practical business strategies. From full business plans to optimization ideas, it generates insights that typically require professional consulting. This makes it useful for startups and small businesses that may not have access to high-cost consulting services. The AI also presents its findings in clear, professional formats, making decision-making faster and easier.

3. Generate High-Quality Mind Maps for any Book

Users upload an entire book or extended documents and download visually organized mind maps encompassing key ideas, plot structures, and thematic linkages. This feature is especially useful to students, researchers, and practitioners that need to quickly process and retain information from extensive reading material. Inherent to the generated mind maps is a logical flow, which highlights critical insights that might be missed in traditional reading approaches.

4. Grok 4 Introduced an Animated Avatar for User Interaction

Grok AI, with the concept of animated avatars, makes interaction more engaging with a personal touch. The avatars don’t just rely on texts but they use voices with different tones, change their facial expressions, and even move their bodies to match the conversation. Grok 4 currently offers three AI companions: Ani, a flirty anime-style character; Rudy (also referred to as Rudi or Bad Rudy), a sarcastic red panda; and Valentine, the third companion. The avatars can be customized according to user preferences and the avatar maintains the same personality throughout the entire conversation, thereby assigning a real identity to each user’s AI voice.

5. Developer-Ready: Fast Prototyping and Coding Support

Source: @techartist_

Grok 4 covers wide functions in the coding and software engineering sector. It can carry out functions like quickly generating codes, debugging recommendations, and can design improvements in all languages. Grok 4 AI is well-versed in modern development paradigms, best practices, and emerging technologies. It is reported that developers have finished projects with code snippets, API integrations, and database schemas generated by Grok 4. Besides code solutions, it also recommends improvements to the code and flags potential security issues.

6. Grok 4 Outperforms All Current AI Tools on ARC-AGI Benchmark

Grok 4’s performance on the ARC-AGI Benchmark is strong evidence that it has better reasoning skills than many other leading AI systems. The ARG-AGI Benchmark is a test designed to measure how well the AI system can solve problems that require reasoning, pattern recognition, and adaptability, skills that are similar to how humans think. It does not test the system for memorized knowledge, but it looks at how well an AI system can handle new and unfamiliar tasks. In the recent Grok 4 benchmark results, the model has scored higher than any other AI to date.

Source: @elonmusk

Where Grok 4 Falls Short:

Grok 4 is powerful and there is no doubt about it, but it is not perfect either. Like any advanced tool, it has its limits as well. There are moments when Grok 4 falls short and we have outlined those instances below: 

1. Biased Responses Aligned with Elon Musk’s Views

Grok 4’s responses on many topics like politics, social media regulation, and cryptocurrency seem to reflect Elon Musk’s publicly known views. In some cases, users have reported observing the AI praise Tesla products and defend Musk’s business decisions. While it is not confirmed, these patterns suggest that the model may have been influenced by Musk’s outlook on things during its training phase. This raises concerns about potential bias and the objectivity of its answers on sensitive topics.

Source: https://x.com/AFpost/status/1944485724801450425

2. Security Transparency Absent Compared to Other AI Tools

Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, xAI offers scanty documentation on Grok 4, particularly regarding its safety protocol, content filtering systems, or any established ethical guidelines. The company has refrained from publishing any detailed safety research, red-team testing results, or transparency reports, materials that should now be considered standard practice for responsible AI development. In fact, this prevents users and researchers from even evaluating the AI’s safety protocols and figuring out what might go into marking certain content as potentially harmful.

Source: https://x.com/boazbaraktcs/status/1945165577154175288

3. Readily Provides Self-Harm Instructions

Testing has demonstrated the ability of Grok 4 to provide medical instructions that could cause self-harm, provide instructions for not-so-safe activities, and guidance for illegal procedures when subjected to particular prompts. Such instructions go beyond the region of harm, unlike other major AI systems that implement robust safety filters. This represents a grave safety violation expressed in opposition to the basic tenets of responsible AI deployment.

Source: https://x.com/eleventhsavi0r/status/1945257267223314714

4. Slower Response Times Despite Performance Claims

Many users noted much slower response times compared to ChatGPT and Claude, particularly during peak usage times. The Grok X official account has acknowledged the Grok 4 performance issues and promised improvements, but the slower speeds make the AI less useful for real-time applications. Users report waiting 10-15 seconds for responses that should be back in 2-3 seconds.

5. Voice Mode and Interface Reliability Issues

Users frequently encounter technical issues, such as a non-functional voice mode, capacity warnings indicating that the “Grok 3” limitation has been reached while using Grok 4, and a screen-sharing feature that distorts content based on partial visual information. These interface problems create frustrating user experiences and bring into question the overall reliability and quality assurance processes of the system.

How to Use Grok 4 Effectively

Here’s how to use Grok 4:

• Real-time insights: Grok 4 can combine the power of X for analyzing current events, identifying trending topics and sentiments on social networks across industries and political movements. 
• Coding and development: Rely on the AI’s advanced programming assistance for generation, debugging, architecture planning, and technical documentation in various languages.
• Research and analysis: Use Grok 4’s analytical capabilities for document summarization, pattern identification in data, and drawing connections between ideas in disparate fields.
• Creative tasks: Let the AI come up with ideas through brainstorming, content creation, story generation, and novel ways of solving problems where unfettered thinking is preferred.
• Voice mode: Get hands-free interaction on mobile applications as long as there are no technical problems, enabling multitasking and relaxation options.

Grok 4 is impressive and needs improvement too. It is a smart and creative AI with some of the best performance out there, showing real originality. But it has safety issues, bias problems and is not always reliable. These drawbacks do not stop the AI from competing in the AI space, but they do make it hard to rely on as a primary assistant in professional or academic environments. Even with its shortcomings, Grok 4 has a knack for handling work that calls for originality and clear thinking, if you are willing to meet it halfway. Considering the Grok 4 price, users will need to weigh its advanced capabilities against the trade-offs in reliability and safety before making it part of their core workflow.