Until now, users of X had two choices for their home feed: a raw chronological stream where everything appears in order, and the algorithmic “For You” feed, driven by traditional signals like likes, reposts, and time spent on content. With the introduction of Custom Timelines, announced on April 22 by Nikita Bier, the platform’s product head, Grok now controls what you read.

How does it work?

You can pin one or more topics to your home tab from over 75 available themes (such as tech, sports, politics, culture, etc.). Grok then scans all network posts to elevate those it deems most relevant to your chosen topic, while also considering your interaction habits. The more you engage with a topic, the more refined the selection becomes.

Bier markets this feature as a tailor-made curation where each feed becomes unique. For now, only Premium subscribers on iOS have access to it. Support for Android is expected to be rolled out soon. There has been no mention of its availability for free accounts yet.

What’s the goal behind this product?

Since xAI acquired X last year for $33 billion, the strategy has been to integrate Grok throughout the user experience. The chatbot was already a part of the interface, used for answering questions or checking posts. This functionality has since been moved behind the Premium paywall.

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With Custom Timelines, Grok does more than just assist users. It actively decides what deserves to be seen. This marks a shift from a statistical algorithm to a generative AI that reads the network in real-time, interprets the context of posts, and prioritizes based on its understanding.

Trusting Grok?

By handing over the keys to your news feed to Grok, you’re placing a significant amount of trust in it. However, xAI’s AI tarnished its reputation in recent months. Earlier this year, its image creation module was used to generate non-consensual nudes, some of which depicted minors. The European Commission has naturally initiated an investigation. More recently, a group of teenagers in the United States filed a lawsuit against xAI. They accuse the company of allowing a mode to run despite knowing its potential for misuse.

Asking users to let the same AI filter their daily information just weeks after these incidents is quite a bold move.

If Custom Timelines prove successful, they could redefine what we expect from social network customization. Initially, X must demonstrate that Grok can act with discernment when necessary. So far, its track record suggests otherwise.