Grok Bot can now answer your X DMs, take requests on X and replace your Android assistant

What happened

On October 20, Matt Palmer, who works on Grok Bot at xAI, posted a five-minute “What’s new in Grok Bot” video listing a dozen changes, including X DMs, tagging @bot, new connectors, voice calls and an Android assistant (X post). The post had passed a million views by October 21.

According to Tesla North’s write-up of the video, the headline changes are:

• X DMs. Grok Bot can read and reply to your X Chat DMs. Palmer said there are limits in place and “you can’t spam people” (Tesla North).
• Tag @bot. Mention @bot in an X thread and your own Bot takes the request, once you have installed and set up the X plugin (Tesla North).
• Android. Grok Bot can be set as the phone’s default digital assistant (Tesla North).
• Smaller upgrades. Voice calls remember the previous call for 30 minutes, and new connectors include Robinhood, Coinbase, Trello, PostHog, beehiiv and eToro (Tesla North).

The official changelog for version 0.71.2 (October 14) separately lists tagged email addresses such as name+shop@, where a routine runs only for that tag’s mail (xAI changelog).

Whether the Bot needs your approval before each DM reply goes out is unknown: Tesla North says Palmer didn’t say (Tesla North).

Our take

Reading DMs is useful. Replying to them in your name is a different level of trust. A wrong email can be explained; a wrong DM to an investor, customer or journalist on a public network is harder to take back.

Who should care: founders and creators who live in X DMs, and anyone weighing Grok Bot against ChatGPT dots or Claude as their always-on assistant.

What to do now: connect DMs if they eat your time, but start with read-and-summarize and drafts you approve, not automatic replies. Turn on auto-replies only for low-stakes threads after a week of checking its drafts. If you hand it your Android assistant slot, remember it can read what’s on your screen.