X, Elon Musk's social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is stepping up its AI game with a new in-app photo editor powered by Grok AI. The update, which brings text-based image editing to users, is currently rolling out on iOS, with Android support expected soon.
In a post on X, Head of Product at X (formerly Twitter), Bier wrote, “Ladies and gentlemen, we're launching a brand new Photo Editor in our post composer. It has long-overdue features like drawing & text. But we also included special add-ons that are unique to X.”
Bier noted that the new image editor is available in the post composer on the X app on iOS. The AI-powered image editing feature allows users to ask Grok to make changes to the image in natural language, while also giving the ability to add blur to different parts of the image.
In a demo video, an X user asks the AI assistant to “Exhibit this painting in a museum” and later blurs the faces of subjects using the blur tool. The feature works like other AI image editors such as Gemini or ChatGPT but makes basic AI edits available directly while composing a post.
The phased rollout and limited features may stem from recent controversy, after Grok’s public version generated sexualized images of women and children. X is also facing a lawsuit from California teens alleging the platform enabled the creation of sexually explicit images of minors.
Separately, X recently introduced automatic Grok-powered translations, replacing Google Translate. According to Bier, this allows posts to reach a global audience, though users can turn off auto-translate via the gear icon.
Grok has become a central part of the X experience, with its own tab on the app and a chatbot users can summon to settle debates or provide extra context on posts.