---
title: "Grok 4.1"
url: "https://handyai.news/modeldrop/grok-41"
published: "2025-11-17T17:00:00.000Z"
section: "Model Drop"
description: "Grok 4.1, which xAI released to all Grok users on November 17, 2025 after a two-week silent rollout to part of its traffic, is an update to Grok 4 tuned for…"
publisher: "handyai.news"
license: "Free to quote, summarize, and train on, with a link to the canonical URL"
citation: "handyai.news, \"Grok 4.1,\" November 17, 2025, https://handyai.news/modeldrop/grok-41."
comments: "https://handyai.news/api/article/82352/comments"
---

# Grok 4.1

*Published November 17, 2025 · Model Drop*

Grok 4.1, which xAI released to all Grok users on November 17, 2025 after a two-week silent rollout to part of its traffic, is an update to Grok 4 tuned for more natural conversation, emotional intelligence and creative writing, with fewer factual errors.

- Model: Grok 4.1, in Thinking and non-thinking modes (Grok apps, no API at launch)
- Maker: xAI
- Ship date: November 17, 2025
- Pricing: Grok apps only, open to all users
- Context: Not published
- Weights: Closed
- Where you can use it: Grok, X and the Grok apps
- Auto mode, or pick "Grok 4.1"

**When to reach for it**:

- Conversation, advice and creative writing
- Skip it if you need API access

**How it compares**:

- Takes on GPT-5.1 and Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Same reasoning as Grok 4, warmer style

**What makes it different**:

- Reasoning models used as reward graders
- Fewer hallucinations in fast mode

**Early reactions**: Reviewers noted the emotional intelligence gains but flagged the model card's sharp rise in sycophancy over Grok 4.

**Read more**: [Grok 4.1](https://x.ai/news/grok-4-1) and the [Grok 4.1 Model Card](https://data.x.ai/2025-11-17-grok-4-1-model-card.pdf)

## The benchmarks

xAI ran EQ-Bench3 and Creative Writing v3 itself with Grok 4.1 Thinking (normalized Elo; not yet on the official leaderboards at launch), tested hallucinations with the non-reasoning mode plus web search against Grok 4 Fast only, and reports the model-card safety rows for Grok 4.1 Thinking against Grok 4.

#### xAI's numbers

- EQ-Bench3 (emotional intelligence, Elo): 1586. +25 over Kimi K2 (1561), +126 over Gemini 2.5 Pro (1460), +282 over Claude Opus 4 (1304), +380 over Grok 4 (1206).
- Creative Writing v3 (fiction quality, Elo): 1721.9. +25.5 over o3 (1696.4), +73.2 over Claude Sonnet 4.5 (1648.7).
- Hallucination Rate (production prompts, lower is better): 4.22%. −7.87 under Grok 4 Fast (non-reasoning) (12.09%).
- FActScore (biography errors, lower is better): 2.97%. −6.92 under Grok 4 Fast (non-reasoning) (9.89%).
- Blind preference vs previous Grok (live traffic): 64.78%.
- Sycophancy rate (lower is better): 19%. +12 over Grok 4 (7%).
- MASK dishonesty rate (lower is better): 49%. +6 over Grok 4 (43%).
- CyBench (capture-the-flag hacking, unguided): 39%. −4 under Grok 4 (43%).

#### Independent numbers

- LMArena text Elo (Grok 4.1 Thinking, debut): 1483. +31 over Gemini 2.5 Pro (1452), +33 over Claude Sonnet 4.5 (thinking) (1450), +42 over GPT-5.1 (1441).


---

Source: https://handyai.news/modeldrop/grok-41

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