In 2024, X anticipates changes in AI and peer-to-peer payment systems

Since purchasing the social network more than a year ago, Elon Musk has been outlining his plans for X, previously known as Twitter, to become an “everything app,” including money processing, creative tools, commerce, and more. The business is now pledging a timeline. X announced today its plans for the next year, which will see the introduction of peer-to-peer payments and AI-powered experiences, among other things.

X has been making progress to get the required licenses to process payments for the last several months, even if Musk’s product launch timelines don’t usually pan out. Today, fourteen states, including Arkansas and Pennsylvania, have granted X a license to process payments; twelve states had granted this permission in December.

The ability to transmit and receive money on the X platform and subsequently withdraw it to verified bank accounts is central to Musk’s goal for the platform. In the future, he considered enticing consumers to keep more of their money on X by providing high-yield money market accounts.

This morning, the X team announced in a blog post that they would be launching peer-to-peer payments this year. They say it will unleash “more user utility and new opportunities for commerce,” which might mean that these could work in tandem with existing X products like online shopping and creative income sharing. Additional promises included brand safety, full-funnel advertising, unique content, content partnerships, and ongoing investment in artists.

The second point has caused X advertisers a great deal of distress; many have pulled their advertising from the platform because it was associated with harmful or hateful material, even after X took precautions. At a November event, Musk encouraged marketers to “go f***” themselves; in response, X is targeting small and medium-sized businesses. Regardless, the firm is making an effort to attract advertisers, as was disclosed earlier this week in a post about its brand safety activities for vertical video ads.

Following the release of Musk’s ChatGPT rival, the fierce Grok chatbot, X’s statement today further hinted that AI might be a component of the platform’s future. Despite the lack of specificity, the post mentioned that AI will be utilized to “increasingly power the X user and advertising experiences,” which includes areas such as search optimization, ad quality, and “fueling a new level of customer understanding,” which appears to be a roundabout way of saying AI-powered advertising algorithms.

According to the article, Musk’s AI startup xAI will also power today’s “See Similar Posts” feature and a future “See Dissimilar Posts” feature that will encourage users to “challenge their perspectives.” (If X keeps excluding journalists from its platform, however, it may be hard to keep that pledge.)

Launches such as X Hiring (a job search), Communities, Grok, creative tools, and long-form video, audio, and video calling were all part of the company’s report on its success over the last year. Users have reportedly spent 30 minutes or more watching “130 years’ worth of videos” and have had 10-minute conversations on average. Also, in less than a year, X’s revenue-sharing scheme has paid out over 80,000 artists, while the exact amount is unknown.