Following Elon Musk’s xAI’s move to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X owner on Tuesday said that the corporate formerly often called Twitter will soon offer the Grok chatbot to more paying subscribers. In a post on X, Musk announced Grok will turn into available to Premium subscribers this week, not only those on the higher-end tier, Premium+, as before.

The move could signal a desire to compete more directly with other popular chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude. But it surely is also a sign that X is attempting to bump up its subscriber figures. The news arrives at a time when data indicates that fewer persons are using the X platform, and it’s struggling to retain those that are. Based on recent data from Sensor Tower, reported by NBC News, X usage within the U.S. was down 18% year-over-year as of February, and down 23% since Musk’s acquisition.

Musk’s war on advertisers could have also hurt the corporate’s revenue prospects, as Sensor Tower found that 75 out of the highest 100 U.S. advertisers on X from October 2022 now not spent ad budget on the platform.

Offering access to an AI chatbot could potentially prevent X users from fleeing to other platforms — like decentralized platforms Mastodon and Bluesky, or Instagram’s Threads, which rapidly gained traction due to Meta’s resources to succeed in over 130 million monthly users as of the fourth quarter 2023.

Musk didn’t say when Grok would turn into available to X users, only that it “could be enabled” for all Premium subscribers sometime “later this week.”

X Premium is the company’s mid-tier subscription starting at $8 per 30 days (on the internet) or $84 per 12 months. Previously, Grok was only available to Premium+ subscribers, at $16 per 30 days or a hefty $168 per 12 months.

Grok’s chatbot may appeal to Musk’s followers and heavy X users as it is going to reply to questions on topics which are typically off-limits to other AI chatbots, like conspiracies or more controversial political ideas. It’ll also answer questions with “a rebellious streak,” as Musk has described it. Most notably, Grok has the power to access real-time X data — something rivals can’t offer.

After all, the worth of that data under Musk’s reign could also be diminishing if X is losing users.