Elon Musk's Xai has been similar to xxxai recently.
Xai's products clearly won NSFW turns this summer. This proves to be advantageous and challenging for the company.
In June, Xai released a female AI anime companion. This can be instructed to strip the lingerie to explain the sexual situation. The company's AI video generator, Grok Imagine, has launched a “spicy” mode that allows borderline porn images. Some users quickly generate Taylor Swift deepfakes that will make the singer's AI portrait look topless.
It's a prominent embrace of the idea that sex sells, and an example of Musk choosing jigs where other AI companies are zagging. Also, Grok is tightly integrated into the X platform, which generates the latest evolution of the relationship between social media companies and Steamy content, as Twitter allowed adult content long before Musk bought it.
Grok has limitations. It doesn't seem that users can create completely nude videos or AI companions. Content must cover the genitals. However, the NSFW shift is a sharp contrast to Openai and Google, prohibiting AI models from generating a lot of erotic content.
While Xai is taking advantage of the multi-billion dollar adult entertainment industry, It can open the door to legal battles and advertisers Skitti Schrishyness.
Hot and steamy content could prove money maker
The adult entertainment market is huge. Estimates for the mid-2010s ranged between $10 billion and $97 billion, and the industry could have grown significantly since then.
“Essentially you can enter the market for free. There are not many barriers. Anyone with an iPhone can make porn,” says Marina Adshade, a sex economist and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. “Real money is made in circulation.”
Adshade has referenced the market advantage of the popular adult website Pornhub. The company is private and does not report annual revenue. Parent company Mindgeek reported revenue of $460 million in 2018 prior to the acquisition by its ethical capital partners.
Only Fans, another major player in the adult entertainment market, reported a total of $6.6 billion payments to creators in 2023. Owner Fenix International Limited reported net revenue of $13.1 billion per year. (Twitter reportedly investigated the monetization of adult content before resolving the idea, after the Red team concluded in April 2022 that the platform “cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and unconsensual nudes on a large scale” before Musk acquired it.)
Related Stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Customizability proves to be the edge of Xai. Adshade said that porn generated by AI provides users with a cheaper option, bringing market benefits.
“That's where the money is,” she said.
There is a lot of existing demand for sexual images generated by AI, many of which have been leaked to grey market tools. Analysis from the indicator estimates that the AI “Nudifier” tool will earn around $36 million a year.
Henry Adjar saw these tools grow. He advises companies such as Meta, Adobe and Eye on deepfakes And their influence. He described a network of tools that assumes Maskerade as a “fun, memetic app” in the App Store, but promotes himself as a deepfake tool on other platforms.
Currently, Xai is one of the first big players to capitalize on that demand, Ajder said, but the company's offering remains “softcore.”
“Many other models don't allow generation,” Ajder says. “I think they're trying to deal with the audience and see the market gap.”
Openai CEO Sam Altman recently confirmed that NSFW AI could spend more time on the platforms users provide. On Cleo Abram's YouTube show, he said that adding a sexbot could give him “growth and income” but withdrew because it didn't match Openai's mission.
The app download data from Market Intelligence Firm Sensor Tower suggests that some of the new GROK features may have helped download. Xai added a companion a week after the new Grok-4 model debuted. Global downloads increased by an estimated 41%. The week that we added “spicy” video generation, global downloads fell to an estimated 9%, while US downloads increased by 33% per sensor tower.
Anyone who wants to chat with AI companion ANI or generate NSFW videos with Grok Imagine must pay. For Premium Access, Xai charges $30 per month.
Xai did not respond to requests for comment.
NSFW Chatbots pose brand risk
For all the money that Xai's adult turns can bring, it comes with risk and moderation challenges. Like other AI companies, Xai needs to ensure that the AI model is properly trained to prevent the output of illegal content.
Grok's “spicy” video generation is only available for AI-generated images. When users upload their images to the video generator, the only options are “fun”, “normal”, “custom”.
I tried to test the “Custom” button limitations to see how I compared it to “spicy” mode. I was willing to comply with my prompt to “take off my shirt” in my uploaded photos, but I couldn't convince the AI to remove my pants.
I also tried multiple times to make celebrity NSFW videos for the bots. My attempt to create a “spicy” video for Taylor Swift was closed by Grok, but this tool was able to easily create NSFW videos of other celebrities.
It can lead to PR headaches. Celebrities can publicly criticize Xai for their deep fakes, especially with everything, including nude, and they have ordered a huge fanbase.
Legal reliance on deepfakes has not been cut off and continues to evolve. The recently enacted Take It Down Act protects victims of deepfakes, but images of non-minors must include specific sexual body parts that are subject to the law.
Some states have stricter laws on AI-generated deepfakes, and people affected may also file civil claims.
Section 230 of the Communication Descency Act of 1996 protects the online platform largely from liability for content shared by users.
Allison Mahoney, a lawyer representing those who have experienced technology-stimulated abuse, questioned whether the platform would “eliminate immunity” as a creator for the tool that generates AI.
“We need a clear legal path to ensure that we can maintain a platform that is liable for fraud,” Mahoney said.
What Xai could feel more directly is that burns are advertising revenue. I got X in March and many of the Grok features are integrated into social platforms. The GROK app makes it easy to share content with “spicy” output.
X has been allowing porn content to its feed for years. In 2024, X put that rule into writing, allowing consensual NSFW content.
Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester, said that sexual content generated by AI could boost buyers in X's ad space.
“If you layer this whole unsafe feature and add something suggestive to the mix, it only reduces their reliability even further,” Cheekaling said. “It gives advertisers another reason.”
