xAI are killing it (Grok 4.6, Image 2.0 and more...)
BBetter Stack
Computing/SoftwarePhotography/ArtInternet Technology
Transcript
00:00:00When Grok first came onto the scene, despite being pretty late to the party,
00:00:03they actually ended up competing with Frontier Labs like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
00:00:08But that was all the way back in 2024, and over the following two years,
00:00:12the landscape completely changed.
00:00:14OpenAI and Anthropic became the only labs worth taking seriously,
00:00:18at least for software engineering, and Grok just faded into the background.
00:00:22But something has clearly changed because in the last few months,
00:00:24XAI have been shipping like madmen.
00:00:27We've got a brand new Grok 4.6.
00:00:30Seriously impressive video and image generation with Grok Imagine,
00:00:34a dedicated agent harness with Grok Build,
00:00:36and a voice agent builder for custom text-to-speech agents.
00:00:40Following the merger with SpaceX and the purchase of Cursor,
00:00:44clearly that has been a massive catalyst in moving them forward,
00:00:48and now they seem to have all the ingredients to start competing again on the main stage.
00:00:52So I thought this would be a good opportunity to look again at everything XAI have to offer,
00:00:57because if you're building software, I think they're a serious contender again.
00:01:05So let's start with the newest model release, Grok 4.6.
00:01:09You can see here on Artificial Analysis Index,
00:01:12this is like a composite analysis between multiple different benchmarks.
00:01:16So we've got things like Terminal Bench 2.1.
00:01:19We've got the GDP Val.
00:01:21And you can see that there's been a massive jump here all the way up to fourth place,
00:01:26now competing with GPT 5.6, and not far off Viable and Opus as well.
00:01:32And this is way more impressive considering the price at just $2 in and $6 out.
00:01:37We can come down here as well and look at the individual benchmarks.
00:01:40So if we look at GDP Val, we've come from like 12th place over here all the way up to second place.
00:01:45And this is evaluated on real world tasks, so not just simple tasks.
00:01:50This is now in second place, only falling behind Opus 5.
00:01:54And again, the price difference between these two models is huge.
00:01:58So this is incredibly impressive considering this is just a point increase from 4.5 to 4.6.
00:02:04If we look at Terminal Bench as well, again, we see a massive leap from 4.5 to 4.6,
00:02:10again, coming into second place.
00:02:11And then the most interesting chart, I think, is this one here,
00:02:14which is the intelligence index versus the cost.
00:02:18On the y-axis here, we have intelligence.
00:02:21And on the x-axis, we have a logarithmic scale for cost.
00:02:25And the perfect model would be something right up here,
00:02:27the most intelligent and the cheapest cost.
00:02:30So anything within this box would be classed as the most attractive quadrant.
00:02:34Now, you can see here, interestingly, 4.5 was inside this area.
00:02:38And now we've got a leap in intelligence, so an increase in intelligence here.
00:02:42Interestingly, the model has also become more expensive despite the same price on paper.
00:02:47So this must mean that to gain this new intelligence,
00:02:52the internal thinking steps on the model has changed.
00:02:55So potentially more tokens are being burned to get to certain results.
00:03:00So even though both 4.5 and 4.6 are $2 in and $6 out,
00:03:044.6 burns far more tokens to achieve a task.
00:03:09That's why we've got an increase in intelligence, but also an increase in cost as well.
00:03:13Now, this chart judges things based on the completion of a task.
00:03:16So it gives it a complex task and makes sure it finishes it end-to-end.
00:03:20So that's how it would detect things like models burning more tokens to achieve a certain task.
00:03:25So just something to keep in mind, even though it's the same cost on paper,
00:03:28you'll likely end up spending more money using 4.6 over 4.5.
00:03:33And if you're enjoying this one, guys, we cover the latest in AI constantly on this channel.
00:03:37So you'd do me a massive favor if you could subscribe.
00:03:40So next up, let's look at the Grok Imagine API.
00:03:43This covers multiple things, image narration and video generation.
00:03:47And video is actually an interesting one because if you remember Sora from OpenAI,
00:03:52that was a product that was recently closed down because it was too expensive to run
00:03:56and too distracting because they basically were running too many products at once
00:04:00and they wanted to focus, I believe, more on software engineering and all of the codex features.
00:04:06However, Grok have decided to now take over video.
00:04:09And you can see on their comparison chart,
00:04:10they also compare themselves to Sora despite it being a closed product.
00:04:15And according to their own benchmarks, it's cheaper on price, just 7 cents per second.
00:04:20And it's also much faster at just 45 seconds compared to Sora 2 Pro coming in at 2, 3, 6 seconds.
00:04:27So a massive improvement there.
00:04:29So the first thing I wanted to try out was to ask three different models
00:04:32to generate a flyer for a local food festival.
00:04:35I asked OpenAI, Gemini and Grok.
00:04:38So we look at ChatGBT's output.
00:04:40It's pretty decent.
00:04:41This is actually usable, I would say.
00:04:43All the text is completely legible.
00:04:45Looks really nice.
00:04:46If we look at Gemini's, pretty bad.
00:04:48It's gone with this kind of tune-ish effect.
00:04:51This looks super AI generated.
00:04:53So it's a little bit of a weird one.
00:04:54And then let's look at what Grok did.
00:04:56Grok's looks really good.
00:04:58It also looks very similar to the style that OpenAI or ChatGBT went with.
00:05:02All of the text is completely legible.
00:05:04We have clear icons, images of real looking food.
00:05:07It doesn't look AI generated at all.
00:05:09Incorporated a lot of the elements I mentioned.
00:05:11I mentioned it was local food.
00:05:13I mentioned it was organic.
00:05:15I mentioned there'll be local vendors as well.
00:05:17So support local vendors here.
00:05:18So overall, I think this output is pretty impressive.
00:05:21But the more impressive thing is if we look back over at the Grok image UI.
00:05:25So here again, we've got the same image.
00:05:27But interestingly, we have this thing at the side.
00:05:29Once you've generated an image called Segments.
00:05:31Each individual segment of this image is listed on the right here.
00:05:35All of the leaves down here.
00:05:37All of the individual icons here.
00:05:39This bowl of hummus.
00:05:40The brushstroke here.
00:05:42So all of these elements individually can be changed.
00:05:45So if, for example, I was to select this leaf here.
00:05:48I can then put in a separate prompt just to change this one element.
00:05:51So I could say, make this flower instead.
00:05:54So you can go in and just change individual elements by clicking them on the right here.
00:05:59And then describing your edits.
00:06:00Just clicking on the elements themselves within the image.
00:06:03So this makes customization to the generated images really, really flexible.
00:06:07It just makes the whole feature super powerful in my opinion.
00:06:09Next day, advertise a feature called Virtual Try-On where you can place your own products within images.
00:06:15So we look at this reference here, multi-image editing.
00:06:17You can see with the main example, we've got a woman here and then an outfit here.
00:06:22And this would produce this result.
00:06:24Give this a go.
00:06:25Use template.
00:06:26See if it works.
00:06:27Okay, nice.
00:06:27So that looks pretty good.
00:06:28You can see the outfit mentioned here is now on the lady.
00:06:32Okay, that looks pretty good.
00:06:33But I'd like to try this using my own images to see if it works just as well.
00:06:37So let's swap out this.
00:06:39We'll add another image here.
00:06:41Got one here of me earlier.
00:06:43Use this template.
00:06:45Okay, let's see how this looks.
00:06:46Nice!
00:06:48There you go.
00:06:49I don't know why I'm suddenly stood on the sofa, but you can see it's put me in the actual outfit, so it looks pretty good.
00:06:55Now let's try an even harder version.
00:06:58Here's me doing a marathon earlier this year.
00:07:00Let's see if that works.
00:07:02Okay, pretty solid.
00:07:06It's actually really good.
00:07:07I'm a big fan.
00:07:08They advertise a bunch of these features on the main homepage.
00:07:11You can also turn these into videos as well.
00:07:13So you can see here you can turn both the product and then the person into a moving video, and then they can do things like product placement here as well.
00:07:21So you can see it's a single video that you can then change the outfit, and you get a very consistent look between the movements and the character, just changing the one element that you want to be different.
00:07:33We can also do things like turn sketches into 3D models, into more realistic prototypes.
00:07:38And all of this is available through their API as well.
00:07:41So if you want to build services on top of this, that is now completely possible.
00:07:45Now let's look at the harness.
00:07:46So this one's a little bit strange.
00:07:48They've got the CLI, Grok Build, which is the same as like Claude or Codex CLI, purely terminal-based.
00:07:54Then they have Grok Bots, which is closer to Claude Cowork, where bots can drive your machine and browse the web.
00:07:59Then, of course, they now have Cursor after the acquisition, and Grok 4.6 is the model being pushed inside Cursor.
00:08:06So you can see on the Cursor homepage under the Models tab, Grok is now the only model that's mentioned.
00:08:12Clearly, see, they're trying to push this after the acquisition.
00:08:15You'll still have access to other models, including Cursor's Composer model.
00:08:19So listed here, you can see all of the models that are available.
00:08:22We've got Composer 2.5, Grok 4.6.
00:08:25You can still access Claude's models through Cursor as well.
00:08:29And we also have Cursor Router here.
00:08:31This is when you select Auto Mode, and then Cursor will automatically push requests to a different model,
00:08:36depending on the context and depending on the intelligence it believes you need.
00:08:40But between Build and Bots and Cursor, these products are kind of fragmented at the moment.
00:08:45And I think we'll start to see these converge since the acquisition.
00:08:49Potentially, Grok Bot, Grok Build, and Cursor will start to blend into one product.
00:08:53But as of right now, it's still fairly fragmented.
00:08:56I have been using Cursor this week, though, with Grok 4.6.
00:08:58And I have to say, it is genuinely good at software engineering.
00:09:01My usual driver is Opus or Fable.
00:09:04But outside of Anthropik's own harness, you're stuck with API rates.
00:09:08And that can get pretty expensive fast.
00:09:10Cursor is very capable and considerably cheaper with Grok 4.6 in comparison.
00:09:16Okay, next up is Grok Voice or Grok Voice Agent Builder.
00:09:19I'm not sure exactly what they're calling this entire suite of tools.
00:09:22Maybe just Grok Voice.
00:09:23But you can build your own agents, connecting it to tools like Web Search, Gmail, and custom MCPs to get the data it needs.
00:09:30You can select a voice and then even hook it up to a phone number to call it directly.
00:09:34So here I've created a personal voice agent called Personal Assistant.
00:09:38And I've gave it the capability to search the web.
00:09:40And then I can just try it live as well.
00:09:42So let's start speaking.
00:09:44Hello, I would like to go out for dinner tonight to have Italian food somewhere in East London because the weather seems quite nice.
00:09:52Could you recommend a restaurant with outdoor seating?
00:09:54I'd be happy to help you find a great spot for Italian tonight.
00:09:58Emilia's Crafted Pasta at St. Catherine Dock's stands out.
00:10:02Nice.
00:10:02So you can see that's pretty fast to reply.
00:10:05You can also interrupt it as well.
00:10:06And it seems like a much more natural interaction.
00:10:09The whole intent of this is not necessarily for me to just talk to personally online.
00:10:15But it's to create things like agents that can handle customer support or reservations.
00:10:19And you can actually connect it directly to a phone number.
00:10:22So you can set up a phone number here.
00:10:24Unfortunately, this is not available within my region.
00:10:26So I couldn't try it out.
00:10:27But once it's hooked up, it means that then customers can just call that phone number.
00:10:32It can interact with your API, use your tools, connect to your MCP.
00:10:36So it's got all the data it needs and then handle a lot of stuff for you.
00:10:40So again, if you want to develop on top of their API and support custom voice agents, that is now possible as well.
00:10:46They also do things like text-to-speech, speech-to-text.
00:10:49You can see all of that is available within the website itself and again, available through the API.
00:10:54You can also train your own voice as well.
00:10:56So if you wanted an agent that had an English accent, for example, that is also possible.
00:11:01Unfortunately, again, not available in my region, so I couldn't try it out.
00:11:04But if you wanted a bespoke voice that is more relevant to your brand rather than the default American accents, then that is also now possible.
00:11:12But Grok and XAI clearly have a lot more to offer now, particularly after the acquisition of Cursor.
00:11:18I think this is going to be an exciting space to watch and we're going to see a lot more happening within the next six months.
00:11:23So if you're doing software development or want to build services on top of their API, I do think these are a really good one to keep an eye on.
00:11:30I've heard a lot of great things from other engineers as well using Cursor with Grok 4.6, so also worth checking out yourself.
00:11:37But hopefully you enjoyed this one, guys.
00:11:39Thank you so much for watching.
00:11:41And again, you do me a huge favor by subscribing to the channel.
00:11:43We cover tech and AI constantly on this channel.
00:11:46So if you want to stay up to date, then subscribe.
00:11:48Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next one.
00:11:51We'll see you in the next one.
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