What happened
Report Provider: TestingCatalog
Author: Alexey Shabanov
Publication Date: July 28, 2025
xAI is gearing up to introduce several major updates to its Grok app, aiming to broaden its appeal to creative users and those interested in more personalized AI companions. Among the new features, the upcoming release of the fourth Grok companion, Valentin, is notable. Valentin is a male virtual character with interactive progression, designed similarly to the existing Ani companion.
Assets for Valentin are already present in the app, and the feature appears focused on users who enjoy character-driven experiences with the potential for deeper, more adult-oriented content as users level up. This could particularly attract female users who have responded positively to earlier companions.
BREAKING 🚨: xAI is preparing to release Valentine! Soon, in every timeline 👀* Not available to the public yet pic.twitter.com/YnAv7FGih1— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025The more substantial addition, however, is the Imagine feature, discovered through reverse engineering. Imagine will be accessible from the top bar of the Grok iOS app, initially limited to early access via a waitlist—though at the moment, this waitlist hasn’t gone live for users.
Once active, Imagine unlocks Grok’s new generative AI models for images and videos. Users will be able to browse a curated feed of pre-made images, similar to what OpenAI has shown with Sora, remix existing visuals, or input prompts to create new ones. The image generation engine appears to be based on technology demonstrated with Grok 4, supporting rapid, near-instant infinite generation—users can keep scrolling for endless variations, a first for this kind of app.
The system also includes options to favorite images, generate videos from images, and apply different video presets, including ones that allow more adult-oriented content.— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025A key innovation is the video generation capability, which outputs four variants per request and can add soundtracks to the resulting videos—a feature previously seen only in Google’s Veo 3 model.
The relatively few restrictions, especially in “spicy” content, could spark viral use once the rollout widens. All of these new features are integrated within the Grok app itself, so users don’t need separate downloads or external services, making this launch potentially high-impact for xAI’s ecosystem.
Although there’s no firm launch date, it seems likely xAI will time the rollout to coincide with or rival the release of GPT-5, aiming to capture attention on social media with unique, AI-generated visuals and videos.Imagine video gen on Grok can generate videos with a sound! This is text to image plus image to video.
https://t.co/k4it7oJtW1 pic.twitter.com/RdyCjakJFN— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025As for the company’s strategy, xAI continues to double down on user-centric generative AI, rapidly expanding Grok from a conversational assistant to a broader creative platform. This approach signals a clear intent to compete with both AI art tools and companion AI experiences, with a focus on speed, flexibility, and in-app integration.
If these features work as described, they could drive a new wave of user-generated content and help Grok stand out against major competitors.
Source coverage
Report Provider: TestingCatalog
Author: Alexey Shabanov
Deeper analysis
Full source content
xAI is gearing up to introduce several major updates to its Grok app, aiming to broaden its appeal to creative users and those interested in more personalized AI companions. Among the new features, the upcoming release of the fourth Grok companion, Valentin, is notable. Valentin is a male virtual character with interactive progression, designed similarly to the existing Ani companion.
Assets for Valentin are already present in the app, and the feature appears focused on users who enjoy character-driven experiences with the potential for deeper, more adult-oriented content as users level up. This could particularly attract female users who have responded positively to earlier companions.
BREAKING 🚨: xAI is preparing to release Valentine! Soon, in every timeline 👀* Not available to the public yet pic.twitter.com/YnAv7FGih1— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025The more substantial addition, however, is the Imagine feature, discovered through reverse engineering. Imagine will be accessible from the top bar of the Grok iOS app, initially limited to early access via a waitlist—though at the moment, this waitlist hasn’t gone live for users.
Once active, Imagine unlocks Grok’s new generative AI models for images and videos. Users will be able to browse a curated feed of pre-made images, similar to what OpenAI has shown with Sora, remix existing visuals, or input prompts to create new ones. The image generation engine appears to be based on technology demonstrated with Grok 4, supporting rapid, near-instant infinite generation—users can keep scrolling for endless variations, a first for this kind of app.
The system also includes options to favorite images, generate videos from images, and apply different video presets, including ones that allow more adult-oriented content.— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025A key innovation is the video generation capability, which outputs four variants per request and can add soundtracks to the resulting videos—a feature previously seen only in Google’s Veo 3 model.
The relatively few restrictions, especially in “spicy” content, could spark viral use once the rollout widens. All of these new features are integrated within the Grok app itself, so users don’t need separate downloads or external services, making this launch potentially high-impact for xAI’s ecosystem.
Although there’s no firm launch date, it seems likely xAI will time the rollout to coincide with or rival the release of GPT-5, aiming to capture attention on social media with unique, AI-generated visuals and videos.Imagine video gen on Grok can generate videos with a sound! This is text to image plus image to video.
https://t.co/k4it7oJtW1 pic.twitter.com/RdyCjakJFN— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 28, 2025As for the company’s strategy, xAI continues to double down on user-centric generative AI, rapidly expanding Grok from a conversational assistant to a broader creative platform. This approach signals a clear intent to compete with both AI art tools and companion AI experiences, with a focus on speed, flexibility, and in-app integration.
If these features work as described, they could drive a new wave of user-generated content and help Grok stand out against major competitors.
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