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New Grok coding tool challenges Microsoft and OpenAI dominance

Posted on August 29, 2025
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New Grok coding tool challenges Microsoft and OpenAI dominanceElon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, on Thursday released a new “speedy and economical” agentic coding model, marking its entry into a key focus area for AI companies.

An agentic coding tool is an AI-powered software application that can autonomously perform coding-related tasks.

xAI’s model, called grok-code-fast-1, will be available for free for a limited time, with select launch partners including GitHub Copilot and Windsurf.

xAI’s model, called grok-code-fast-1, will be available for free for a limited time

“Its strength lies in delivering strong performance in an economical, compact form factor, making it a versatile choice for tackling common coding tasks quickly and cost-effectively,” xAI said.

AI companies such as OpenAI and Microsoft are focusing on making AI coding assistants available to its users.

Microsoft in May introduced the GitHub Copilot feature, a coding agent, at its annual Build software developer conference. CEO Satya Nadella had in April said that 20-30% of overall code in Microsoft is being written by AI.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s agent, called Codex, was made available to ChatGPT Plus users in June.

Read: ChatGPT’s mental health costs are adding up

xAI sued Apple and OpenAI in US federal court in Texas on Monday, accusing them of illegally conspiring to thwart competition for AI.  — Juby Babu, (c) 2025 Reuters

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