• Nikita Bier said Communities drew under 0.4% users but most abuse reports
• Custom Timelines uses Grok to label posts instead of filtering keywords
• Premium users on iOS can pin ten topics and reorder feeds

X will shut down Communities on May 30 due to low usage and spam content. This feature was launched in 2021 for users to connect with people of interest. Now, it will be replaced with Custom Timelines, a new feature that creates personalised topic feeds that users can pin to the home tab.

Head of product Nikita Bier shared an X post saying "Communities had a great vision, but they were used by less than 0.4% of users—yet contributed to 80% of spam reports, financial scams, and malware on X"

Must read: Elon Musk’s XChat is coming! Can it take on WhatsApp and Telegram?

The Custom Timelines is powered by Grok, and it's currently available to Premium users on iOS. As of now, Timeline consists of more than 75 topics to choose from, including Formula 1, K-pop, cryptocurrency and biotech. The company said the new system does not use keyword-based filtering. Instead, Grok reads and labels each post before assigning it to a topic feed, which X said helps improve accuracy as users spend more time engaging with a subject.

Bier described the update as "one of the biggest changes to X". Users can pin up to 10 topics, rearrange them and switch between feeds from the home tab. X has also launched a Snooze Topics tool, which lets users mute categories such as politics or sports for 24 hours.

Must read: SpaceX eyes historic $75 billion IPO: Here’s how Elon Musk plans to strengthen ‘Muskonomy’ vision

Custom feeds are already offered by platforms such as Bluesky and Threads, and X is now introducing its own version with Grok-based real-time post analysis. The Snooze Topics tool is already live for Premium subscribers on iOS and web, while support for custom timelines on Android will be added later.

The decision to close Communities drew criticism from creators, prompting X to extend the migration deadline from May 6 to May 30. Following the backlash, the company also increased group chat limits from 350 members to a planned 1,000 members.

X has also expanded its ad inventory with the launch, with every second slot in the custom feeds reserved for advertising. It remains to be seen whether the new timelines will replace Communities for users, as curated feeds and group chats serve different purposes.