Elon Musk's Grok conquers Telegram: 300 million deal for AI revolution!

Elon Musk's Grok conquers Telegram: 300 million deal for AI revolution!

Telegram today announced a significant partnership with Elon Musk's AI company xAI, focused on integrating the AI ​​chatbot Grok within its platform. This collaboration, which is initially scheduled to last one year, entails a financial commitment of 300 million US dollars (approx. 275 million euros). Telegram has over a billion monthly active users, which greatly increases the reach of this integration. Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, emphasized the importance of cooperation and shared on social media: “Together we win!” OE24 reports that Telegram will also receive 50 percent of subscription revenue from xAI within the app.

The decision to integrate Grok into Telegram represents a strategic move to provide users with advanced features and potentially encourage paid subscriptions. Grok, known for his sharp and often sarcastic responses, was previously available exclusively on the X (formerly Twitter) platform. This move aims to significantly improve the user experience in group chats and programming support, as Grok is able to analyze X posts and web results in real time.

Economic implications of the partnership

The cooperation with xAI comes at a time when Telegram can already report an impressive annual profit of 540 million US dollars (approx. 495 million euros) in 2024. Telegram's sales amounted to 1.4 billion US dollars (approx. 1.28 billion euros), which corresponds to a fourfold increase compared to the previous year. These numbers clearly show that Telegram is experiencing dynamic growth, reinforced by the new collaboration with the AI ​​company BBC.

However, the partnership is not without controversy. Telegram is facing criticism that calls the platform a “dark web in your pocket” due to reports of criminal activity. Durov ran into trouble with the law in France in August 2024 when he was accused of failing to adequately address content that promoted criminal activity. However, he has strongly denied the allegations and stated that Telegram is actively working with authorities to moderate such content.

Technological challenges and user concerns

The integration of Grok into Telegram is not only a technological advance, but also a step into a highly competitive market characterized by offerings from famous companies such as OpenAI, Google and Meta. However, users are expressing privacy and security concerns regarding Grok, especially given some of the bot's controversial statements that have sparked debates about its reliability. Currently Grok is only available to Telegram Premium users, while a wider release in the future still seems uncertain Tech startups reported.

Overall, the partnership between Telegram and xAI shows the potential for a whole new era of chat and search technologies and, given the large number of active users, could bring the AI ​​chatbot Grok further to the fore. The coming months will be crucial to see how this integration will impact Telegram's growth and adoption.