Grok’s 3D companions are being retired. What a companion on the Mac should be.
xAI is removing Grok’s animated companions from September 2026. If you liked having a face to talk to, here is what to look for in the next one: a native app you own, on the AI you already pay for.
In July 2025, xAI gave Grok a set of animated 3D companions, and for a year a lot of people had a face to talk to. On July 24, 2026, xAI said the companion mode was an experiment it was retiring, and the companions began disappearing from accounts on September 1. The personalities and chat history stay; the faces go. If you liked having one, that is a loss, and you are not alone in feeling it.
Why faces keep getting switched off
A face that lives on someone else’s server is a line item on their bill. It costs them every minute it is rendered, it competes with whatever they would rather spend on, and it can be turned off in a product meeting. Grok’s companions are the latest example. The pattern is not that people stop wanting a face: Call Annie drew a crowd by putting a ChatGPT face on M-series Macs back in 2023. It is that faces kept on a server are expensive to keep.
What to look for in the next one
- A native app, not a session. If the face is rendered on your own computer, no one is paying to keep it alive but you, and no one can switch it off.
- The AI you already pay for. A companion tied to one company’s model goes wherever that company goes. A face for your existing ChatGPT account moves with your account.
- A price you pay once. If there is no server behind the face, there is no reason for a monthly fee.
- A human, rendered live. Gaze, blinks and breath, reacting as the conversation happens, rather than a clip or a stylized model.
Where Facelet fits
Facelet is a Mac app that signs in with your ChatGPT account and renders one of ten lifelike human characters on your Mac in real time. There is no API key and nothing billed by the minute; an early seat is $24.99, once. It is not a Grok replacement, since it is built for ChatGPT, and it is not a personality of its own: it is a face for the assistant you already use. It needs an Apple silicon Mac, M2 or newer. How it compares with companion apps and per-minute platforms is on the comparison page.