X (formerly Twitter) recently re-released its Grok AI chatbot, after a rather controversial series of antisemitic responses – which resulted in it being taken down and ‘reprogrammed’ to be better. This culminated in the formation of Grok 4, which brings with it many new capabilities, including the ability to transform into an AI anime-girl companion known as Ani.
More on Ani, and how to unlock access to the tech in the sections below.
How To Unlock Grok Companions On X
- Head on over to the Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS) and update the X app as required.
- Next, fire up X and click on the hamburger menu (two straight bars at the top left corner).
- Click on the Settings (cog wheel) menu.
- Toggle ‘Enable Companions’.
Doing this should be enough to enable Ani, the default X companion. Ani is represented by a rather stylish Goth anime girl, equipped with an interesting combination of pigtails and fishnets.
Alternatively, it is also possible to toggle Bad Rudy, yet another AI companion. Bad Rudy is a 3D fox-like companion. Do note that enabling Bad Rudy will automatically replace Ani – so you can’t really use both at the same time.
To switch back to Ani, toggle Enable Bad Rudy to revert the changes.
Some Things To Keep In Mind
The first thing to note here is that Grok’s ‘AI companion mode’ is not a free-for-all all – you will have to shell out at least $30 to access it. This represents the first subscription tier in Grok 4, and can be subsequently ‘upgraded’ to SuperGrok Heavy, which brings with it more contextual and voiced responses.
Unfortunately, SuperGrok Heavy costs a whopping $300, making it out of reach for many. How well this will pan out in the future remains to be seen. Grok 4’s AI Companions seem to be largely a gimmick rather than anything else, at least as of now.
