xAI to retire grok-imagine-image-quality on November 2, folding it into a cheaper tier

xAI has announced the retirement of grok-imagine-image-quality, one of its Grok Imagine image-generation model slugs, effective November 2, 2026, according to the company's release notes dated September 2.

What's new

The release notes state plainly: "On November 2, 2026, grok-imagine-image-quality is retired. Requests to the slug will be served by grok-imagine-image-2.0 with quality set to low, with no change to the request or response shape and at a lower per-image price." In practice, that means existing integrations pointed at the old slug won't need code changes — the same API calls will simply route to the newer grok-imagine-image-2.0 model configured at its lowest quality setting, at a reduced per-image cost. The notes also clarify that the original grok-imagine-image (version 1.0) model is unaffected by the change and continues to operate as before.

xAI is directing developers to a migration guide for anyone who wants to adjust their integration ahead of the cutover rather than rely on the automatic redirect.

Context

Grok Imagine is xAI's image-generation line, sitting alongside Grok's chat models in the company's API lineup. Retiring an older quality-tier slug in favor of routing it into a newer base model is a consolidation move: rather than maintaining separate infrastructure for the deprecated tier, xAI collapses it into a quality parameter on the current-generation model. The two-month notice window (September 2 announcement, November 2 retirement) gives developers time to adjust before the automatic fallback takes effect, though the stated intent is that most integrations won't need to do anything.

Why it matters

On its own, retiring one image-quality slug is a minor housekeeping change. But it's a small data point in a broader pattern: as xAI's Grok Imagine models mature past their initial versions, the company is simplifying its API surface by consolidating older, narrower model slugs into parameterized options on newer base models — the same shift toward fewer underlying models with more configuration knobs that other frontier labs have been making with their own image and video lines. For developers building on Grok Imagine, the practical takeaway is that the lower per-image price on the replacement path is a real, if modest, cost reduction landing automatically in November.