Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI launched a new model on Thursday that focuses on agentic programming. With this move, the company is entering a domain that is receiving increasing attention within the AI sector.
The new model, grok-code-fast-1, is being offered free of charge for a limited time and is available through several partners, including GitHub Copilot and Windsurf. According to xAI, the model was developed entirely from scratch with its own architecture and a training set that relies heavily on realistic pull requests and development tasks. During development, xAI worked closely with partners such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, opencode, and Windsurf. This allowed the model to be tested directly in agentic workflows.
Its technical performance is particularly notable for its speed. Thanks to prompt caching, grok-code-fast-1 achieves cache hit rates above 90 percent and can handle multiple tool calls before the first output lines are visible. The model supports a wide range of programming languages, including TypeScript, Python, Java, Rust, C++, and Go. It can perform a variety of tasks, from setting up new projects to answering programming questions and targeted bug fixing.
Competitive pricing
After the free introductory period, xAI has opted for competitive pricing: 20 cents per million input tokens, $1.50 per million output tokens, and 2 cents per million cached tokens. This positions the model as a relatively accessible option for everyday use.
The launch is part of a broader trend in which major players are expanding their AI tools for software development. In May, Microsoft introduced GitHub Copilot as a full-fledged programming agent at the Build conference. CEO Satya Nadella previously indicated that 20 to 30 percent of the code within Microsoft is now created with the help of AI. OpenAI also took steps with its Codex agent, which has been available to ChatGPT Plus users since June.
The xAI roadmap includes variants of grok-code-fast-1 that will support multimodal input, longer contexts, and parallel tool calls. This positions the company directly in the competitive playing field where OpenAI and Microsoft are also strongly focused.