The race of the data giants continues this week. In a bold move Telegram Founder Pavel Durov announced that they would be partnering with Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI. This signals the convergence of two of the world’s largest digital ecosystems.
Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI, is investing a staggering $300 million in the telegram chat platform. The investment, comprising both cash and equity, marks one of the most significant partnerships yet in the rapidly evolving AI and messaging landscape.
As part of the deal, xAI’s conversational AI assistant, Grok, will be fully integrated into Telegram’s ecosystem for at least one year, and made broadly accessible across the app.
Big Data Meets Mass Communication
The partnership brings together two of the largest and most engaged platforms on the internet: xAI, backed by Elon Musk and enriched by massive data streams from X (formerly Twitter), and Telegram, with over 900 million monthly active users and one of the largest troves of private communication data outside of Meta.
The collaboration could serve as a powerful alternative to Meta’s growing dominance in AI-enhanced messaging, especially as Meta integrates its own Meta AI into the search functions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
How Grok Will Work Inside Telegram
According to a video shared by Durov on X, Grok will be embedded directly into Telegram’s interface:
- Pinned at the top of chats, Grok will offer proactive assistance
- Search bar access, enabling quick questions and instant AI answers
- Writing and content suggestions, including text generation and editing help
- Summarization tools for chats, documents, and shared links
- Business support, including automated Q&A and moderation features
- Sticker creation using natural language prompts
This suite of tools positions Grok as a multi-functional AI assistant, blending productivity with creativity and customer support.
Telegram is also set to earn 50% of all subscription revenue generated from xAI’s services within the app—a move that aligns with Telegram’s broader monetization efforts and support for content creators and third-party developers.
Previously exclusive to premium users, Grok’s wider rollout suggests Telegram is aiming to democratize AI access, potentially bringing the chatbot to hundreds of millions of users across devices and regions.
This announcement underscores the escalating race to dominate AI in social and messaging platforms. As Meta, OpenAI, and Google weave AI into the fabric of their services, Telegram and xAI’s alliance could present a credible, privacy-conscious, and open alternative.
For Elon Musk, this marks a critical expansion of xAI’s presence beyond X.com and Tesla systems, while Telegram gains cutting-edge AI capabilities without needing to build them in-house.
By embedding Grok across one of the world’s most popular chat platforms, Musk and Durov are positioning themselves at the forefront of the AI-powered communication revolution.
