Elon Musk posted two demos of Imagine on August 5, 2026 — xAI's AI image and video generation product — showing off photorealistic artwork and pitching the tool as a way to 'bring any idea to life.' The posts racked up over a million combined views within hours. Here's what owners and X users need to know about what Imagine actually is, who can use it, and what's powering it under the hood.
What exactly is Imagine?
Imagine — also referred to as Grok Imagine — is xAI's multimodal creative generation platform. It can produce photorealistic images and short videos from text prompts, and it also supports editing of existing images and videos. Think of it as xAI's answer to the image generation tools built into other major AI platforms, but running natively inside the Grok and X ecosystem. Musk's posts showed polished, high-detail artwork as examples of what the system can produce.
When did it launch, and is it new?
Imagine has been rolling out in stages. An early version arrived inside the Grok iOS app in August 2025, initially limited to SuperGrok and Premium+ subscribers before expanding to Android. The Grok Imagine API — which lets developers access the tool outside of X — launched on January 28, 2026, according to background research. Musk's August 5 posts appear to mark a fresh push to highlight the product's creative capabilities rather than a ground-up new launch.
What AI models are running it?
Imagine is powered by xAI's proprietary Aurora and Flux models, according to background research. Aurora handles the core image and video generation, while Flux contributes to the quality and fidelity of outputs. xAI has not publicly detailed the full architecture, but the combination is designed to compete at the photorealistic end of the generation spectrum — the kind of output Musk was showcasing in his posts.
Who can access it right now?
As of July 2026, Imagine is available to X Premium subscribers at no additional cost beyond the subscription. Free-tier access was discontinued in January 2026. If you're already paying for X Premium, you should be able to access image and video generation through the Grok interface on iOS, Android, or the web. Developers looking to integrate Imagine into their own apps can access it via the Grok Imagine API.
What does this mean for xAI's broader strategy?
xAI started as a text-focused AI company built around Grok, but Imagine signals a clear push into creative AI tooling — a market where image and video generation are becoming table stakes for any major AI platform. By embedding Imagine inside the X ecosystem and offering API access, xAI is positioning itself to capture both consumer creators and developers simultaneously. Whether the Aurora and Flux models can hold their own against more established image generation systems remains an open question, but the output Musk shared publicly suggests the quality bar is competitive.
Sources & reporting notes
The links below identify the material source records used for this report.
- @elonmusk on X (2026-08-05T04:07:44.000Z) — Direct source
- @elonmusk on X (2026-08-05T04:10:50.000Z) — Direct source
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