X introduces Stories feature with AI summaries powered by Grok
What's the story
X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has unveiled a new feature called Stories. This innovative tool utilizes Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, to deliver succinct summaries of trending stories. Available solely for X's premium subscribers in the Explore section of the app, Stories aims to streamline user experience by providing brief overviews of popular discussions on the platform.
User experience
Stories: A new way to explore trending topics
The Stories feature is designed to enhance the user experience by summarizing posts, linked to each trending story on the For You tab within Explore. This page displays news and stories that are popular within a user's network, making it an ideal spot for users seeking to stay updated with platform discussions without scrolling through extensive timelines. Users may find summaries on a variety of topics, from Apple's upcoming iPad event to Microsoft's security overhaul or AI engineers' burnout issues.
AI integration
The process of summarizing news has changed
Unlike previous attempts at summarizing trends, the Stories feature is powered by Grok, an AI chatbot. Prior to this, X manually added headlines as well as descriptions to its trends, resulting in inconsistent implementation. With Grok's integration, the top news on For You page, is summarized consistently. Access to Grok is being promoted as a benefit for users who opt for Premium subscriptions. Premium and top-tier Premium+ plan users can access Grok using the bottom middle button of the app.
Future plans
Grok's unique approach to AI-powered news summaries
Tech journalist Alex Kantrowitz revealed Musk's future plans for AI-powered news on X, based on an email exchange with Musk. According to Kantrowitz, Grok will base its summaries on conversations happening on X, rather than the text of articles. This approach could potentially influence the representation of news being shared, as it may reflect reactions or opinions instead of factual news. Other companies, including start-ups like Arc and Particle, are also exploring AI news summaries.