Hands on with X’s new AI-powered custom feeds

Bluesky isn’t the only company leaning into AI to help build custom feeds. Amid a slate of recent product releases, X has launched Grok-powered Custom Timelines, which let users dive into one of more than 75 specific topics through curated feeds that can be pinned to the home tab.

The company has described the feature as one of the “biggest changes” to the app to date, saying it uses Grok’s AI to not only build these custom timelines but also personalize them for individual users.

The rollout comes as X shuts down X Communities, a feature that allowed people to create member-based communities around various topics but saw declining use.

According to X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, the custom timelines work especially well for topics users already engage with. A company representative told TechCrunch that the timelines aren’t based on traditional signals like keywords or hashtags. Instead, Grok reads every post, understands it, and assigns topic labels. The system is powered by AI models from xAI, which acquired X last year, further tying the two services together.

Availability and how it works

At launch, Custom Timelines are available only to Premium subscribers on iOS, with Android support in development. All Premium subscription tiers can access the feature.

To use the feature, scroll right past the “For You” and “Following” feeds, as well as any personal lists pinned to the home tab. Tap the plus (+) icon to choose which custom timelines to pin. Users can pin up to 10 topics or lists and reorder them from the same screen.

Once pinned, these feeds can be accessed directly from the home tab across platforms.

Notably, the second position in each custom feed is filled by an advertisement, suggesting a new way for X to increase ad inventory. X’s ad business has reportedly struggled since Elon Musk’s acquisition, with conflicting reports about whether performance has improved.

More than 75 topic categories

The initial set of topics includes broad, high-level categories similar to sections found on news sites. These include Business & Finance, Sports, Technology, Politics, Stocks & Economy, News, Science, Movies & TV, Food & Drink, Art, Real Estate, Home & Garden, Beauty, Education, and Gaming.

Within Sports, users can follow specific leagues and activities such as American football, baseball, basketball, boxing, soccer, golf, MMA & wrestling, racing & motorsports, rugby, snow sports, ice hockey, tennis, cricket, Formula 1, cycling, the Olympics, and esports.

Pop culture and tech topics are also well represented. Users can pin feeds for celebs, music, concerts, country music, dance, electronic music, fashion, pop, K-pop, J-pop, podcasts, hip-hop, and jazz. In addition to a general Technology category, there are dedicated feeds for Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency. Other categories overlap with Elon Musk’s business interests, including robotics, software development, space, and biotech.

Additional options include anime, digital art, photography, career, pets, design, marriage & family, shopping, mental health, and more.

News categories: War, crime, and elections

The initial set of news-related suggestions prominently features the Iran conflict, crime, and elections. While this may reflect current conversations on X, it also illustrates how product design choices can influence which news topics users see first.

Some observers may raise concerns about timelines being built by Grok, which was described as politically neutral and “truth-seeking” but has at times skewed right or amplified misinformation.

In testing, however, the custom timelines did not appear to lean clearly left or right. Sample scrolls surfaced content from outlets including ABC, CBS, CSPAN, AP, Reuters, AFP, Daily Beast, The Hill, Foreign Policy, Puck, The Atlantic, The Economist, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Forbes, and the BBC, alongside commentary from various pundits.

Whether Custom Timelines will significantly change how people use X remains unclear. Many users still prefer seeing their interests reflected in the main algorithmic feed. However, custom feeds allow for deeper exploration of specific interests or for checking in on topics only when relevant, such as following a sports feed during a live game.

Combined with X’s new “Snooze Topics” option for the For You feed, the feature gives Premium subscribers more granular control over what appears in their timelines.