X launches Grok-powered custom timelines for Premium users

This week, social media platform X announced the launch of Grok-powered Custom Timelines, a feature currently available only to Premium subscribers—the paid tier of X users—on iOS. The company touted the feature as one of the “biggest changes” to the app to date. The release of these AI-curated feeds coincides with the platform shutting down X Communities, a legacy feature that had allowed users to create member-based groups around specific topics but saw declining use.

The new feature uses the Grok AI model from xAI, the parent company of the AI technology, to build and personalize timelines for users. Rather than relying on traditional signals like hashtags or keywords, the company said Grok reads and understands every post to apply topic labels. Nikita Bier, the Head of Product at X, noted that the custom timelines work even better for topics users already engage with.

To use the feature, users scroll to the right past their “For You” and “Following” feeds, tap a plus sign, and select which custom timelines to pin. Users can choose from over 75 specific topics to create curated feeds, and they can pin up to 10 topics or lists to their home tab. The initial topics are broad categories similar to sections found on news sites, including:

• Business & Finance, Stocks & Economy, and Politics
• Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Cryptocurrency
• Sports, Science, Movies & TV, and Gaming
• Robotics, software development, space, and biotech

The platform also offers subcategories for specific sports like soccer, basketball, and Formula 1, as well as pop culture topics ranging from music concerts to podcasts.

Notably, an ad appears in the second position in each feed, representing a new avenue for the platform to generate ad inventory. This integration comes as X’s ad business has reportedly been struggling since Musk’s acquisition of the platform.

Among the initial news-related categories suggested to users are topics such as the Iran conflict, crime, and elections. The reliance on AI to curate these feeds has raised some concerns. Grok was ostensibly created to be politically neutral and “truth-seeking,” but in practice has often skewed right or amplified misinformation.

Why it matters

X is deepening its reliance on xAI’s technology to drive user engagement and ad inventory, signaling a shift away from community-led features toward AI-curated content consumption.