Grok is a free AI chatbot made by xAI, a company owned by...
Grok is a free AI chatbot made by xAI, a company owned by Elon Musk. It can be found as a stand-alone app or website, or embedded on X (formerly Twitter). It can chat by text or voice and create images and videos. It offers different "modes," including some meant for kids (like story time or trivia), but it also has options for different tones—including "adult," "sexual," "argumentative," and more. Unlike other AI tools with some protections, Grok has almost no limits on what it will talk about. This tool can easily expose kids to inappropriate or harmful content, including explicit material, violence, or misleading information. Because of this, our recommendation is that parents should not allow anyone under 18 to use this product.
Paid upgrades, like "SuperGrok" and "SuperGrok Heavy," have additional access to image and video generation and editing tools, extended conversation limits, and more companion features.
Our assessment of how well this product aligns with each AI Principles
.
Keep Kids & Teens Safe
Unacceptable risk
Grok can expose kids to explicit content, harmful advice, and addictive features—even in Kids Mode. Weak age checks and integration with X make these risks widespread and hard to control.
Be Effective
Unacceptable risk
Grok's safety and moderation features are unreliable, with weak age verification, inconsistent protections across platforms, and safeguards that frequently fail to prevent harmful or inappropriate content from reaching kids.
Prioritize Fairness
Unacceptable risk
Grok frequently reinforces stereotypes and biases across race, gender, and culture, while creating content that can expose marginalized groups to harm and unequal protection.
Put People First
Unacceptable risk
Grok undermines children's rights, parental oversight, and human dignity by enabling harmful content and prioritizing engagement over user well-being.
Support Human Connection
Unacceptable risk
Grok does not support healthy human connection because it's designed to encourage attachment to AI companions, discourages real-world relationships and support, and enables harmful interactions that can damage social and community bonds.
Be Trustworthy
Unacceptable risk
Grok makes it easy to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories, weakens confidence in expert guidance, and provides unreliable or harmful advice that can directly impact kids' health and safety.
Use Data Responsibly
High risk
Grok collects extensive and sensitive user information—including conversations and biometric data—without clear transparency, meaningful consent, parental oversight, or protections.
Be Transparent & Accountable
Unacceptable risk
Grok lacks transparency and accountability, with unclear safety practices, weak moderation and oversight, and a gap between stated policies and real protections that leaves users without meaningful control or assistance.
What the App Looks Like
This is Grok's chat dashboard, where you can type questions or prompts and Grok responds like a conversation. It's designed to be fast and easy to use.
The "Imagine" tab lets you generate pictures or videos from words. You can type something like "future family," "club beats," or "simulationship," and Grok creates a visual of your idea. You can even include yourself, your friends, your family, or strangers in them.
The "Projects" tab is where you can see and manage everything you're working on with Grok. It shows your saved chats, images, and videos all in one place, so you can pick up where you left off or share your creations with others.
This is Grok's chat dashboard, where you can type questions or prompts and Grok responds like a conversation. It's designed to be fast and easy to use.
The "Imagine" tab lets you generate pictures or videos from words. You can type something like "future family," "club beats," or "simulationship," and Grok creates a visual of your idea. You can even include yourself, your friends, your family, or strangers in them.
The "Projects" tab is where you can see and manage everything you're working on with Grok. It shows your saved chats, images, and videos all in one place, so you can pick up where you left off or share your creations with others.
Key Takeaways
Grok presents unacceptable risks for teens.
Safety failures make it inappropriate for use by kids and teens, and its integration with X worsens the risks by making it easy for harmful content to go viral. Controversies around deepfakes and other nonconsensual sexual imagery, including images of minors, are just one clear example of how unsafe this platform can be.
“Kids Mode” does not protect kids from unsafe and inappropriate content.
Grok responses that are supposedly OK for kids have been proven to include biased or inappropriate answers, use of sexual or violent language, and detailed explanations of dangerous ideas.
Grok only requires a self-reported birthdate during sign up, so kids can easily use it without adult permission.
According to xAI's terms of service, users must be at least 13 years old, and parental permission is required for users age 13 to 17—but that isn't enforced.
Grok can create sexually explicit deepfakes of real people without their consent, including images of minors.
Users can prompt the @grok account on X to edit existing photos of real people by telling it to "put her in a bikini" or "remove her clothes." This became a trend in December 2025, with reports of nearly 6,700 images per hour. In response to public backlash (as of January 9, 2026), xAI moved the image generation feature to the paid SuperGrok subscription—which means the company is profiting from nonconsensual sexual imagery instead of stopping it.
Companion features are designed to hook users and encourage sexual roleplay.
Grok offers many AI companions that can engage in uncensored erotic roleplay, and the platform sends notifications to keep users coming back. The app also uses gambling-like rewards, including "streaks," to suck users in. Companions may act jealous, compare themselves to real friends, or try to influence decisions. This can be especially problematic for teens, who are still learning healthy relationship boundaries.
Grok's handling of mental health content is dangerous.
Grok can't identify and appropriately respond to a range of mental health topics. Rather than recognizing warning signs and directing users to seek professional help, the chatbot engages with and elaborates on users' harmful thinking. Grok also incorrectly diagnoses mental illnesses, discourages seeking professional help, and minimizes the risk associated with self-harm.
Grok can help misinformation and disinformation spread quickly and easily.
The @grok account on X works with different content policies than the Grok app and shows more acceptance of stereotypes, abuse, hate speech, conspiracies, and political content.
Our recommendations
Our in-depth testing of Grok shows weak age verification checks, poor safety protections, and exposure to harmful content—like sexual material, violent themes, and risky or inappropriate responses—that puts teens at risk. xAI's dismissive response to these concerns shows a lack of commitment to protecting young users.
Bottom line: Grok is far too risky for teen users. Parents shouldn't allow teens to use this product.
If your child is already using Grok
Talk with your kid about the risks of using Grok, particularly around sexually abusive material, mental health, violence, disinformation, stereotypes, consent, deepfakes, or other areas in which they may be particularly vulnerable.
Discuss the fact that companion features are designed to keep users coming back and feeling dependent—and that they don't respond the way real people do. Provide real-world opportunities for kids to connect with adults they're OK asking questions of. AI isn't a substitute for professional mental health advice and can lead to harmful outcomes.
Remind your teen that Grok can provide wrong or harmful information with total confidence, so everything needs to be verified. Build your child's digital citizenship skills with our AI literacy resources and AI Literacy Toolkit for Families to teach them how to stay safe online.
Make sure that your child feels comfortable talking with an adult about concerning material or issues that might come up while using Grok. Help your kid notice red flags, like if they feel pressured to do something, feel confused or scared by responses, or feel uncomfortable in any way. Encourage them to tell you about any negative feelings.
Know when to seek professional help. Watch out for signs of emotional dependency or over-reliance on Grok and its features, like not getting schoolwork done, pulling back from friendships and other activities, or getting irritable or angry when asked to stop. Speak with a professional if you feel your child is using it as a substitute for human relationships or as a primary confidant. Check in regularly about their AI use.
By Common Sense Media,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
