Elon Musk's xAI Drops Grok 4 and $300 Subscription 🤯

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

After some tumultuous days with the new “politically incorrect version” of Grok 3, xAI has finally launched the much-anticipated Grok 4. Meanwhile, YouTube has updated its monetization rules to tackle the surge in AI-generated content.

Let’s get into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI

• Elon Musk’s xAI Launches Grok 4 and $300 Subscription Plan

• YouTube Updates Monetization Policy to Address Spammy AI Content

• AI Tutorial: Upscale your images with AI for free

• AI Tools to check out

• AI Findings/Resources

• The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

XAI

Elon Musk’s xAI Launches Grok 4 and $300 Subscription Plan

xAI has introduced its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4, alongside a premium $300-per-month subscription plan called SuperGrok Heavy.

Details:

• Grok 4 shows frontier-level performance on several benchmarks, including Humanity’s Last Exam and AIME, outperforming competitors like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s models.

• The new model supports a 128k context window and excels particularly in academic benchmarks, with Musk claiming that it is “better than PhD level in every subject—no exceptions.”

• Grok 4 Heavy, a multi-agent version, offers even higher performance by using collaborative problem-solving techniques to tackle particularly difficult tasks.

• The SuperGrok Heavy plan offers early access to Grok 4 Heavy and upcoming features like AI coding tools and video generation models, while the standard SuperGrok subscription ($30/month) gives access to Grok 4.

• xAI is also releasing Grok 4 through its API with a 256k context window to encourage developers to build applications using the model.

Despite criticism over Grok 3 going off the rails just days ago, it’s notable that a relatively new AI lab is competing with top players—though as more people test Grok 4, we’ll soon see if it truly is “the smartest AI in the world,” as the company claims.

Source

YOUTUBE

YouTube Updates Monetization Policy to Address Spammy AI Content

Starting July 15th, YouTube will update its monetization policies to tighten restrictions on ‘inauthentic’ content, as it moves to crack down on spammy material, including mass-produced AI-generated videos.

Details:

• YouTube has clarified that creators using AI responsibly can still monetize their work, as long as the content remains original and meets YouTube’s standards.

• The update targets channels that rely on stolen clips with AI-generated voiceovers, reused or repurposed videos and other low-effort methods to churn out videos.

• YouTube editorial head Rene Ritchie emphasized that the changes are a minor update to existing rules, aimed at better identifying mass-produced or repetitive content, which has already been ineligible for monetization for years.

The updated policy text hasn’t been released yet, and the full impact remains to be seen, but it isn’t the blanket ban on AI content that some feared; instead, it aims to strike a balance between encouraging creative use of AI and reducing spammy, low-quality content.

Source

AI Tutorial

Upscale your images with AI for free

1. Go to Free AI Image Upscaler — no signup needed, no watermarks, and you can upscale images up to 16K.

2. Upload your image and select 2×, 3×, or 4×. (Optionally, you can toggle on Face Restoration if the result has strange-looking faces.)

3. Wait a few seconds, then download your upscaled image.

AI Tools to check out

🔥 Pine AI: An AI agent that takes hassle off your plate — handling customer service calls, refunds and more, so you can just focus on what matters.

👀 Corpus: Connect tools like Salesforce, Notion, Slack, Gmail, and get unified insights, briefings, and next steps in one intelligent workspace

👉 Proactor: The world’s first ‘self-active’ AI teammate.

🦾 AgentX: Build a team of AI agents that work together with any LLM.

🔍 Scout: The most curious coding and research agent.

AI Findings/Resources

📝 This ChatGPT prompt writes your entire business plan in minutes

👉 A playlist on how to build DeepSeek from scratch

🤔 What happens when you don't feed an AI model any data?

👀 Zuckerberg’s playbook for poaching AI talent is absolutely savage

🤖 Humanoid robot Noetix N2 endures serious abuse but keeps walking / Children in China play with their new Unitree robot

The latest in AI and Tech

Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles 'next week'

A "hacker" who goes by the name "green" discovered that drivers would be able to choose between various Grok "personalities," including Argumentative, Conspiracy, Kids Story, Therapist, Unhinged, and more—even some that are NSFW.

Nvidia briefly becomes world’s first $4 trillion company

The chipmaker became the first company ever to reach a staggering $4 trillion market cap. Although its value has since dipped slightly, it remains the world's most valuable company, ahead of Microsoft and Apple, the only two other companies to have passed the $3 trillion mark.

OpenAI closes $6.5 billion deal to buy Jony Ive’s device startup

OpenAI has officially announced the acquisition of Jony Ive’s AI startup, io Products, while Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, remain independent.

McDonald’s AI hiring bot exposed 64 million applicants’ details

Security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curry accessed the backend of McDonald’s hiring system by entering the username and password “123456,” gaining access to data from more than 64 million applicants who had interacted with McDonald’s AI hiring bot, Olivia.

The chatbot was built by HR tech firm Paradox AI, which addressed the issue and claims to have fixed it.

Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X

Yaccarino announced on Wednesday that she would resign after two years leading the social media company. Her exit comes months after Musk sold X to xAI, a move that raised questions about her role in the company going forward.

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻