A wild week: Grok Code Fast 1 exploding to 66% usage share

xAI, founded in 2023 by Elon Musk, focuses on building innovative large language models (LLMs) under the Grok brand, known for its sharp wit and bold interactions. The company’s rapid rise, fueled by Musk’s vision and resources, has positioned it as a leader in the AI industry. By late 2023, xAI secured a $6 billion Series B funding round in May 2024, achieving a valuation of approximately $24 billion.

The release of Grok Code Fast 1 marked a pivotal milestone as xAI's inaugural coding model, showcasing its innovative prowess. This debut model achieved remarkable success, surging to the top of the OpenRouter leaderboard within 96 hours and capturing 66% of Kilo Code's usage share, redefining the competitive AI landscape with its speed and impact.

Record-breaking performance

The momentum was immediate and relentless. We shattered OpenRouter's daily app consumption record, hitting an all-time high of 88 billion tokens in a single day. But that was just the beginning.

Over the four-day launch window, Kilo Code processed a staggering 169 billion Grok Code Fast 1 tokens, more than the combined usage of the top 20 competing applications. This isn't just growth; it's a complete market disruption. It shows the power of pricing in this market, and we saw xAI extend the free promotion even longer based on this success.

The developer community's embrace of Grok Code Fast 1 has been nothing short of extraordinary. In many ways, the AI battle is just beginning again—and it reveals that speed, both in token generation and rapid iteration based on feedback, can win developers' hearts and wallets.

The overwhelming response didn't go unnoticed, catching the attention of Elon Musk, tweeting about Grok Code Fast 1's performance and pinning the tweet to the top of his X profile, amplifying our reach to his 15+ million followers - and proving that xAI is in the coding AI wars to win.

It remains to be seen if Grok Code Fast 1 will have enough coding power to be the model of choice past the launch period. Users have been impressed by the speed, but still need to be sold on trusting the output. In the same Reddit thread you can read conflicting opinions:

Grok feels like a really good autocomplete on steroids. Great for rapid prototyping and routine coding tasks.

and

I don't need speed, I need depth and sound architectural decisions.

So it appears that you’ll need to figure out how well it works in your environment. And there is no time like the present - Grok Code Fast 1 remains free for all Kilo Code users until September 10th. Don’t miss the chance to see what all the excitement is about - try it out in Kilo!