Artificial intelligence developer xAI Corp. is building a consumer chatbot that will launch as soon as next month, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The company is also believed to be training a new frontier model that could debut around the same time. According to the Journal, xAI hopes that the algorithm will rank as the “world’s most powerful AI by every metric.”

The new AI will presumably be a new addition to the company’s flagship Grok line of large language models. The newest publicly known LLM in the series, grok-beta, was announced earlier this month. It can process prompts with up to 128,000 tokens and is capable of performing tasks in external applications.

It’s unclear whether the  consumer chatbot that xAI is expected to launch will use the new model. The upcoming LLM might make it easier for the company to differentiate the service from the better-established alternatives on the market. When it launches, xAI’s chatbot will face competition from not only OpenAI’s ChatGPT but also similar tools from Meta Platforms Inc. and Google LLC.

Should the chatbot succeed in gaining traction, the cost of processing user queries could become significant. That may require xAI to follow in the footsteps of OpenAI and try to monetize its chatbot with a paid edition for consumers. OpenAI also offers subscription-based versions of ChatGPT that are geared towards enterprises.

According to the Journal, xAI will raise more funding next year to support its growth efforts. The company has received at least $11 billion since it was launched by Elon Musk last year. 

Besides xAI’s product and fundraising roadmap, today’s report also detailed its relationships with Musk’s other companies. The AI developer is said to be on track to surpass $100 million in annual sales. Most of that revenue reportedly comes from X Corp. and SpaceX Corp.’s Starlink business.

SpaceX is using xAI’s LLMs to provide customer support features for satellite internet customers. X, meanwhile, relies on the models to power its embedded AI assistant. The Financial Times reported today that investors who in 2022 helped Musk take X, then Twitter, private have received 25% of xAI’s shares. 

Musk’s companies are also said to be collaborating in other ways. According to today’s report, xAI has exclusive access to certain datasets from X and Tesla. Its engineers are using the data to train AI models.

The company develops its LLMs using a supercomputer in Memphis that features 100,000 Nvidia Corp. graphics cards. Earlier this year, Musk stated that xAI plans to add 100,000 more chips “soon.” The additional hardware could make it easier for the company to meet the compute requirements of its upcoming consumer chatbot. 

Image: xAI