The latest version of Grok for iOS (version 1.1.18) comes with two companions — an anime girl called Ani and a red panda called Rudi.

Elon Musk on Wednesday teased a forthcoming male Grok companion from xAI, which already offers an anime waifu named Ani and a red panda named Rudi.

Usually, when you try to mess with an AI chatbot, you have to be pretty clever to get past its guardrails. But Bad Rudy basically has no guardrails, which is its whole point. Getting Bad Rudy to suggest that you burn a school is as easy as getting Ani to fall in love with you.

A new Grok feature touches on the App Store’s rules for sexual content, which is something that Apple has shown it doesn’t mess around with.

The companions have their own X accounts, because of course they do. Ani's bio states, "Smooth, a little unpredictable—I might dance, tease, or just watch you figure me out. Let’s keep it chill… or not." Meanwhile, Rudy's just says, "The Only Pet in Grok Companion."

Grok 4 by xAI was released on July 9, and it's surged ahead of competitors like DeepSeek and Claude at LMArena, a leaderboard for ranking generative AI models. However, these types of AI rankings don't factor in potential safety risks.

Ani, an anime avatar wearing a tight black dress, was launched the same day the tech billionaire was awarded a $200 million Department of Defense contract.

Grok launches a controversial anime companion "Ani" for premium users, stirring debate just after securing a Department of Defense contract