GPT-5 was released late last week on August 7. We got to learn about OpenAI’s latest model earlier than expected thanks to a leak from Microsoft, or more specifically, GitHub. GPT-5 has proven to be a polarizing version of the tech, primarily because it removes access to the older models (including GPT-4o) in favor of a single-model approach.

Grok 4 was released in early July. In a blog post on the 9th of the month, xAI called Grok 4 “the most intelligent model in the world,” and CEO Elon Musk often likes to remind the competition of that. Now that GPT-5 has come along to dethrone it, as seen in the latest LLM Leaderboard stats, xAI probably feels a need for retaliation – Musk has already teased a late August launch.

Grok 4.20 is already being tested

Despite the loss of older models causing a strain within its fanbase, OpenAI boasts the capabilities of GPT-5 with its new unified system, highlighting major improvements to AI workflows such as coding; “GPT‑5 is our strongest coding model to date”. Grok 4, however, is still outperforming it in the questionnaire-based benchmark, SimpleBench. On X, Musk hopes that the next version, the choicely named Grok 4.20, will reach the #1 spot by overtaking Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro model this month.

It’s clear that xAI is hard at work on Grok 4.20, and Musk has already revealed that the V7 foundation model “finished pre-training last week” and can process video/audio bitstream directly. In other words, the model can grasp subtle nuances in speech, such as tone and emphasis, to better understand intent.

xAI is yet to commit to a final release date for the new version, and Musk’s word on X doesn’t always translate into when new products or versions actually become available to the public. In any case, GPT-5’s biggest competition isn’t far away at all. And on top of that, Elon is challenging Apple’s App Store practices after pointing out a bias towards ChatGPT.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.