{"id":5119,"date":"2026-05-07T18:21:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T18:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suprmind.ai\/hub\/grok\/grok-features\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T18:21:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T18:21:27","slug":"grok-features","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/suprmind.ai\/hub\/grok\/grok-features\/","title":{"rendered":"Grok Features 2026: DeepSearch, Think Mode, Companions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Grok Features Deep Dive<\/div>\n

How Grok Works:
DeepSearch, Think Mode,
Companions and More<\/h1>\n

\n Grok ships with twelve distinct features split across four categories: research and reasoning, content generation, conversational interfaces, and workspace tools.\n <\/p>\n

\n This guide covers what each feature actually does, how it works mechanically, when to use it, when not to, and the documented limitations and transparency gaps.\n <\/p>\n

\n For pricing on each feature’s tier requirements, see the Grok Pricing Guide<\/a>. For comparisons against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity equivalents, see Grok vs Other AI Models<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n


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DeepSearch and DeeperSearch<\/div>\n

How multi-step research works.<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n DeepSearch is the feature that turns Grok from a chat model into a research agent. Activated through a UI toggle on grok.com or by prefixing prompts with “Use DeepSearch:”, it fires an iterative retrieval-augmented-generation loop. The agent splits the query into sub-queries, runs parallel searches against the web and X, follows fresh links, summarizes each batch in an internal scratchpad, and repeats until it hits a 10-step limit or a time threshold.\n <\/p>\n

\n The model cross-checks up to seven consistency layers before drafting the response. Users can toggle a “Thoughts” view to see the intermediate reasoning steps. In the API, DeepSearch maps to enabling the web_search<\/code> and x_search<\/code> server-side tools. Citations are only generated when these tools are invoked.\n <\/p>\n

\n DeeperSearch is the more thorough variant. It runs additional iterations, traverses deeper through linked sources, and produces a longer synthesis stage. xAI employees described it as “an improved version of DeepSearch” that goes “two steps further.” Latency is the trade-off: DeeperSearch takes meaningfully longer.\n <\/p>\n

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Tier availability<\/h4>\n

\n Free tier: limited DeepSearch with usage caps. SuperGrok and above: full DeepSearch. DeeperSearch likely requires SuperGrok or higher; precise tier mapping is not enumerated in official docs. Treat tier-specific limits as Volatile.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Documented limitations<\/h4>\n

\n Source quality varies. DeepSearch surfaces blogs alongside Reuters, viral X posts alongside verified reporting. The standard interface does not consistently distinguish X-sourced from web-sourced citations. Hard limit: 10 search steps per prompt.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Think Mode<\/div>\n

The reasoning tax:
Why Think Mode hurts summarization.<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n Think Mode activates Grok’s reasoning model path. Instead of producing an answer in one shot, the model generates an internal chain-of-thought, visible via the “Thoughts” toggle, before producing output. xAI’s official description: Think “focuses on advanced reasoning and problem-solving… like a human thinking.” Available across tiers for basic Think access; Heavy mode (extended reasoning) requires SuperGrok Heavy. Grok 4.3 has reasoning always on by default with no toggle.\n <\/p>\n

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\n The mechanism produces a documented trade-off that users rarely see flagged: turning Think Mode on for document summarization tasks increases<\/strong> hallucination rates. Per Suprmind’s AI Hallucination Rates and Benchmarks reference<\/a> (May 2026 update), Grok-4-fast-reasoning scored 20.2% on the Vectara New Dataset for summarization hallucination – the highest of any frontier model tested on that benchmark. Grok-3 on the same benchmark scored 5.8%. The jump from 5.8% to 20.2% is the largest within-family regression in the Vectara dataset.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Why reasoning increases summarization hallucination<\/h3>\n

\n The mechanism is documented. Reasoning models invest compute into generating inferences. When the task is open-ended analysis, those inferences add value. When the task is grounded summarization (compressing a source document into a shorter version), the same inference engine adds conclusions and inferences the source document does not contain. Vectara measures this as fabrication – the model added facts not in the source.\n <\/p>\n

\n The practical guidance: turn Think Mode on for analytical tasks where step-by-step logic matters and you want chain-of-thought transparency. Turn it off for document summarization, citation-grounded research, and any task where the deliverable is compressed source material. The reasoning tax is real and quantified.\n <\/p>\n

When Think Mode earns its cost<\/h3>\n

\n Open-ended technical analysis. Multi-step problem decomposition. Math problems where intermediate steps validate the conclusion. Strategic decisions where you want to inspect the model’s reasoning before accepting the answer. In these cases, the visible chain-of-thought is signal, and the inference-heavy generation produces value rather than fabrication.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n


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Expert Mode<\/div>\n

The transparency gap:
The most opaque feature in Grok’s lineup.<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n Expert Mode is a usage mode rather than a tier or a model version. Users select it manually from the consumer app. It forces higher compute and deeper reasoning regardless of query complexity, in contrast to Auto Mode which routes dynamically.\n <\/p>\n

\n The gap: no verbatim official xAI definition of Expert Mode appears in xAI’s published documentation as of this guide’s research pass. We searched docs.x.ai, the xAI blog, the Grok user guide, and primary launch announcements. Expert Mode appears in third-party YouTube tutorials, third-party review articles, and the consumer app UI itself, but not in xAI’s own documentation as a defined feature with stated mechanics.\n <\/p>\n

Third-party descriptions place Expert Mode in this hierarchy<\/h3>\n