Google AI Plus and free users are losing access to Gemini models, and it’s happening very soon

About three months ago, Google offered me a deal for the Plus subscription tier where I got it at a ~75% discount for three months. It was a really good deal for improved storage space, more Gemini usage, and, the most important part for me, access to the Gemini Pro model. Unfortunately, Google has seemingly decided that the Plus subscription tier is too much of a good thing, as it’s losing Pro access later this month alongside a restriction to the free tier.

Google begins tightening the restrictions on the lower subscription tiers for Google AI

The bottom two tiers lose access to a model soon

I first noticed this when I headed over to Google Gemini on the web. A notification popped up, informing me that I was losing access to the Google Gemini Pro model in the coming weeks. Clicking the included link took me to a page titled “Changes to Gemini model access and limits,” which detailed what’s happening later in October.

On October 9th, free users will lose access to Flash, meaning they’ll only have Flash-Lite. Meanwhile, the Google AI Plus subscription tier will lose the Pro model, but they’ll still have Flash-Lite and Flash at their disposal. Google says Plus subscribers will receive an email detailing when they’ll lose access to Pro. Every other subscription tier will see no changes.

Here’s the chart Google supplied to visualise the changes better:

Of course, if you use Google AI Plus, you still keep all the storage benefits and access to Flash, but I must admit that the Pro model was a big reason why I kept my subscription. Maybe it’s time I checked out what the rivals are doing.