Grok Traffic Falls as Adult Content Dominates Usage Report

A new report from The Information claims that Elon Musk’s xAI is increasingly relying on explicit content generation to drive engagement with its Grok chatbot, with adult-related activity now making up the majority of traffic on the platform.

According to the report published Wednesday, xAI is expanding Grok’s capabilities for generating explicit images and videos. It also states that the chatbot’s coding model frequently receives prompts involving pornographic material. The report says more than half of Grok’s overall usage is linked to pornographic images and videos, adult-themed role-play conversations, and similar content.

Vital Knowledge analyst Adam Crisafulli described the strategy as “a desperate attempt for relevancy,” arguing that xAI has continued to lose ground to rival AI platforms from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta. Similarweb data cited in the report indicates that Grok experienced a 22% decline in web traffic between January and May, marking the steepest drop among major AI chatbots. The figures do not include interactions with Grok through Musk’s social media platform, X.

The company has also faced increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny in multiple regions, including the European Union, India, Brazil and the United States. A lawsuit filed in California alleges that a Grok user altered images and videos of three teenage girls, including two under the age of 18, into sexually explicit content. Reports have also linked Grok’s image-generation tools to the creation of non-consensual “undressing” images and the widespread circulation of sexualized deepfakes involving women. Several watchdog organizations and media investigations have further raised concerns that Grok’s safeguards have failed in cases involving sexualized depictions of minors or child-like imagery, while protections such as “Kids Mode” have been criticized as ineffective.

Musk has denied knowledge of such incidents, saying he is “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok.”

Launched as xAI’s answer to ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s Gemini, Grok was introduced as a less restrictive AI assistant. Earlier this year, xAI merged with SpaceX before becoming the world’s most valuable private company and later went public. Despite those developments, the report says Grok has struggled to keep pace with leading AI competitors. Similarweb data shows Claude’s web traffic grew by 369% over the same period, while DeepSeek, Google’s NotebookLM and Gemini recorded growth of 44%, 43% and 40%, respectively.