Exploring the Best Features in the Latest Twitter (X) Update
Since rebranding to X, the platform once known as Twitter has undergone a profound transformation. Under Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino, X is rapidly becoming an “everything app”—a hub for social, financial, and digital life. This update delivers cutting-edge AI features, enriched content tools, expanded monetization, new commerce capabilities, and enhanced UX design.
In this comprehensive guide, we unpack each major improvement—what it does, why it matters, and how you can take advantage.
- AI-Powered Feed and Content Recommendations
X is significantly upgrading its feed with AI-driven recommendations, leveraging patterns from user activity to deliver more relevant, engaging content. The result? A personalized timeline that learns from your follows, likes, and engagement habits to surface posts, trending discussions, and media curated for you.
Why it matters
- Helps you discover content you care about, even from accounts you don’t follow.
- Ideal for creators and businesses, as AI boosts engagement beyond existing followers.
- Makes the feed more dynamic and intuitive—perfect for casual browsing.
- Audio Tweets & Enhanced Spaces
X now enables interactive audio tweets—voice-based posts that followers can respond to with their own voice messages. This intimate format humanizes conversation on the platform.
Meanwhile, Spaces (live audio rooms) continue evolving with scheduling tools, recordings, and even ticketed access for monetizable speaking events.
Why it matters
- Adds personality and emotional nuance via voice.
- Great for creators, brands, and journalists—mocking club-style discussions, storytelling, and interviews.
- Ticketed Spaces create a direct path for monetization.
- Video Upgrades: Seek, PiP, Longer Uploads, and Dedicated Tab
Video consumes more attention these days—and X is responding aggressively:
- Seek buttons: Jump 15 seconds forward or back during video playback.
- Picture-in-Picture: Keep scrolling while video plays in a floating mini-window.
- Longer uploads: Premium users can now post videos up to hours long and larger file sizes.
- Full-screen video tab: US users now get a dedicated tab showcasing a full-screen feed of videos.
Why it matters
- Faster, more flexible viewing—useful for tutorials, interviews, entertainment.
- PiP ensures you stay immersed without missing a beat.
- Long-format content appeals to creators and thought leaders.
- A dedicated video tab surfaces trending clips far beyond your own follows.
- Subscription Tiers: Basic, Premium & Premium+
X Premium is now a tiered subscription system—Basic ($3), Premium ($8), and Premium+ (~$30)—each offering distinct perks:
- Basic: Post editing, extended character limit (25,000), longer videos, ad experiences, reader mode, bookmark folders, custom icons, organized communities.
- Premium: All Basic features, a blue checkmark, ad revenue sharing on your tweets, content creator tools (e.g. Media Studio), and Grok, the AI chatbot.
- Premium+: Ad-free experience with the highest engagement boost and full set of tools.
Why it matters
- Tailors the experience based on user needs and budgets.
- Creators can directly monetize via ads and subscriptions.
- Premium+ eliminates most ads, making for a clean and distraction-free experience.
- Grok: AI Chatbot & Story Summaries
Grok, xAI’s generative chatbot, is integrated into the platform for Premium/Premium+ users. Whether answering questions or summarizing threads, Grok adds a jam-packed layer of interactivity.
It also powers Stories—digestible narrative summaries of trending topics, surfaced under the For You/Explore section.
Why it matters
- You can ask questions directly in-app, without leaving the feed.
- Stories offer rapid context and insights on trending conversations.
- Enhances content discovery and fact-checking in real-time.
- Community Notes: Crowdsourced Fact-Checking
Now firmly cemented in the platform, Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch) allow users to annotate tweets with context or factual clarification. It remains a community-led system, aiming to improve information quality through consensus.
Why it matters
- Provides in-the-moment fact-checks by users.
- Aligns with transparent moderation goals.
- Despite criticism on manipulation, it’s still a vital tool to understand content context.
- X Money: Digital Wallet & Debit Card
X is making leaps toward becoming a financial hub with X Money—a digital wallet and soon a linked Visa-powered debit card—in addition to investment tools currently in development.
Why it matters
- Makes peer-to-peer payments and in-app transactions seamless.
- Could support tipping, creator payouts, purchases, and even investments.
- Aligns with Musk’s vision to compete with WeChat-style super apps.
- Commerce & Shops: Profile Shops, Livestream & Ticketed Spaces
Evolving social commerce continues with Twitter Shops, allowing brands to display up to 50 products directly on profiles—and expand to livestream shopping and ticketed Spaces.
Why it matters
- Enables social shopping directly through feeds and live events.
- Brands can drive direct conversions, track performance, and monetize via exclusive content.
- UI Improvements: Cleaner Navigation, Dark Modes, Customization
X’s interface refresh emphasizes simplicity and control:
- Bottom navigation bar for Home, Explore, Notifications, Messages, etc..
- Dark mode options, including scheduled dark/light themes.
- Custom fonts, themes, icons, and accessible text-size adjustments .
- Simplified account switching for managing multiple profiles seamlessly.
Why it matters
- Cleaner UI means faster navigation and better usability.
- Accessibility and personalization options cater to diverse user needs.
- Enhances comfort for heavy users and multitaskers.
- Analytics & Feed Controls: Community Timelines & Follower Insights
X now offers advanced feed sorting within Communities, letting users filter posts by recency, popularity, or engagement.
Premium users get detailed analytics comparing follower vs. non-follower engagement—a boon for creators and brands aiming to optimize reach.
Why it matters
- Greater control over feed discovery helps you find meaningful posts.
- Engagement ratios guide creators to tailor content better and expand reach.
- Analytical insights power smarter marketing decisions.
- Expanded Character Limits & Rich Post Formatting
Premium tiers now support extended character limits (up to 25,000 characters), along with bold or italic formatting. Useful for threading long-form content without branching into external blogs .
Why it matters
- Frees creators to publish comprehensive analysis, storytelling, and long-form content.
- Formatting adds visual nuance to emphasize ideas within posts.
- Enhanced Sharing Features: Linking & Live Photos
A small but handy update: content like email addresses auto-link (with angle brackets), and Live Photos on iOS (short video clips) now play natively in tweets.
Why it matters
- Encourages richer, more seamless content creation.
- Brings life and authenticity to personal posts and showcases.
- Verification & Account Labeling
Verification has been overhauled, with clearer eligibility criteria and labels denoting public figures, journalists, brands, parody/fan accounts (marked by a jester’s hat), and official entities.
Why it matters
- Reduces impersonation and confusion.
- Enhances transparency and trust across the platform.
TL;DR – What This All Means
- AI‑Powered Everywhere – Grok, smarter feed, content recommendations, and story summaries.
- Monetization Simplified – Tiered subscriptions, ad revenue, ticketed audio events, community donations.
- Video First Evolution – Seek controls, PiP, longer format, and dedicated tabs.
- Commerce Integration – Tools like Shops, X Money, crypto wallets, and debit services.
- Creator-Centric Tools – Rich formatting, analytics, audio enhancements, and Spaces upgrades.
- Cleaner Experience – UI refresh, accessibility, resource feeds, and verified authenticity.
- Fact Integrity – Community Notes aids credibility through crowd-sourced context.
Final Thoughts
This latest X update marks a seismic shift beyond microblogging—it’s now a full-blown social-financial-creator ecosystem. Users can chat, pay bills, shop, listen, watch, monetize, verify, and explore—all in one place.
- Casual users get richer feeds, easier navigation, and safer moderation.
- Creators enjoy advanced tools to produce, monetize, and analyze.
- Businesses gain new revenue channels via commerce, paid tools, and audience insights.
As X edges toward Musk’s “everything app” ideal, the opportunities for engagement, commerce, and expression continue expanding. Whether you’re a casual scroller, content creator, or enterprise, this update is a game-changer.
