Google to Limit Free Gemini Users’ Access to Advanced AI Models

Google has announced changes to pricing plans in the Gemini app that will take effect on October 9. The changes will affect both free users and paid subscribers.

Pricing plan changes:

• Free accounts: will lose access to the advanced versions of Flash (3.6) and Flash Pro (3.1). From now on, users without a subscription will only have access to the basic Flash-Lite (3.5) model;
• AI Plus subscription ($5/month): will no longer include access to the Pro model. Only Flash-Lite and the basic Flash model will remain available under this plan;
• AI Pro subscription ($20/month): this tier, by contrast, will receive a major upgrade. Users will gain access to Deep Think, an advanced tool for parallel AI reasoning. It was previously available only with the most expensive plans, priced at $100 and $200 per month.

Google does not specify particular model versions, so the situation is unlikely to change with future updates. The restrictions are tied to the subscription tiers themselves rather than to the current generations of neural networks. It appears that the free version of Gemini will now remain a strictly limited trial tool indefinitely.

In addition, the company will introduce flexible complexity settings in Gemini later this month: low, medium, and high for each available model. The higher the selected complexity, the deeper and more detailed the responses generated by the neural network will be. However, the company warns that enabling the maximum level will cause request limits to be exhausted significantly faster.