X (formerly Twitter), a social media (SNS) platform run by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, announced on the 14th (local time) that it has introduced a feature that automatically translates posts. It also plans to roll out an artificial intelligence (AI) feature that can edit photos or images.
Both features run on the Grok AI model from xAI, an AI corporations owned by Musk. Based on X, which has secured about 550 million to 600 million users, the move is seen as a strategy to expand Grok's scope and use, lower language barriers, and increase the time X users spend on the platform.
Nikita Beer, X's head of product, said on X the same day, "We are rolling out the auto-translate feature globally in stages," and noted, "Users who want to read the original text can turn off auto-translate by tapping the gear icon on a post."
X had previously offered a feature that translated posts into the language a user set by tapping the "Translate" icon, but it has now changed the setting so that posts are translated automatically.
The feature appears aimed at helping posts spread beyond a specific language sphere. In fact, major SNS and community platforms such as Reddit have introduced similar translation features to boost user engagement and increase time spent.
X also plans to add a new image-editing feature to its iOS app. When a user requests image editing from Grok with a natural language prompt (instruction), the change is applied immediately.