X has a slightly more functional photo editor now

X is rolling out an update to its in-app photo editor that gives users the ability to edit photos with xAI’s Grok, blur faces and overlay text on images. The new editing features, in particular the addition of text-based edits via an AI assistant, bring it much closer in capabilities to dedicated photo apps like Google Photos.

As part of the update, users are able to prompt Grok to make edits to a photo just by typing out what they want to see. The example video shared by Nikita Bier, X’s Head of Product, showed an image being edited so that it appeared to be hanging in a museum, but simpler tweaks are presumably possible, too. The feature is similar to the “conversational editing” Google added to Google Photos in September 2025, where users can prompt Gemini to adjust the background of an image or make other edits. X’s new editor also includes tools for blurring or redacting parts of an image, drawing on images and overlaying text.

X used to take a far more freewheeling approach to editing photos with Grok, by allowing any user to reply to a post tagging the AI assistant and requesting an edit. After users reportedly generated millions of sexualized images using the feature, including some of children, X limited Grok’s image generating abilities to paying subscribers and removed the AI’s ability to create images of real people in bikinis, underwear and other suggestive clothing.

xAI, the parent company of X, is currently the defendant in a class action lawsuit from three teenagers who allege their photos were used to create child exploitation material with Grok. X is also being investigated in the European Union over similar reports that its platform was used to create nonconsensual sexual images.

X’s updated photo editor is available on iOS now and coming to Android “soon,” according to the company.