Google has announced that Bard is becoming Gemini, its new all-encompassing brand for its generative AI products. Additionally, the firm announced two new products that will facilitate the use of its AI: Gemini Advanced, which unlocks Google’s best Ultra 1.0 AI model; and a new mobile app allowing customers to make use of Gemini on the go. A Google One AI Premium plan will be required for Gemini Advanced use.
Google launched the Gemini AI model as a direct competitor to OpenAI's GPT-4 back in December. As it stood, it seemed disjointed to run Gemini 1.0 Ultra, Pro, and Nano as the LLMs behind its Bard product. Today, Google’s Gemini product stack has become much more simple and unified.
The largest and most capable ‘Ultra’ LLM from Google, is going to be available exclusively to subscribers and will be known as Gemini Advanced. To get access to this level of AI capabilities you will have to subscribe to the new Google One AI Premium plan. In the US it will cost $19.99 per month, but Google is also offering introductory promotions, such as subscribing with the first two months free (at the time of writing).
Why would you decide to pay for Gemini Advanced, when the standard Gemini using the Pro LLM is going to be free to access? According to Google, Gemini Advanced (Ultra LLM) users will benefit from the following:
- Gemini Advanced can be your personal tutor — creating step-by-step instructions, sample quizzes or back-and-forth discussions tailored to your learning style.
- It can help you with more advanced coding scenarios, serving as a sounding board for ideas and helping you evaluate different coding approaches.
- It can help digital creators go from idea to creation by generating fresh content, analyzing recent trends and brainstorming improved ways to grow their audiences.
Those are more complex tasks than the Gemini Pro LLM is capable of, and which will be accessible to free-tier Gemini users. Also Google is talking about delivering more advanced reasoning, more advanced coding coding, and deeper data analysis to its Gemini Advanced users.
Gemini app for Android and iOS
Shifting our focus to the new Gemini App, and Google says that it is available immediately for both Android and iOS device users, in the U.S. in English, with other locations and languages coming soon. Google’s Android users will also be able to opt-in to use Gemini through the easy access and quite deeply integrated Google Assistant. If you don’t want to pay to get Gemini Advanced, as we mention above, you can use Gemini with the Pro LLM. The Pro 1.0 model works in over 40 languages and more than 230 countries and territories, so the app should follow suit, eventually.
At the time of writing, the Gemini Advanced product using the Ultra 1.0 model is only available in English, but you can use it from 150 countries right away. Google plans to expand it to more countries and add more languages over time.
Google is also keen to point out that the new Google One AI Premium plan has a lot more in it than the access to Gemini Advanced. It also includes all the benefits of the existing Google One Premium plan, such as 2TB of cloud storage, store credit offers, enhanced Google Photos editing features, a VPN, and more.
Google’s generative AI journey hasn’t been the smoothest. Last year we reported on Bard plagiarizing content from Tom’s Hardware. The AI was also seen touting the benefits of evils such as genocide, facism, and slavery. Moreover, it gained a reputation for ‘hallucinating,’ as it would happily describe imaginary (but possible) products like the GeForce RTX 5090 Ti or the Radeon 9900 XT. Now Google is starting to make Bard Gemini mainstream we hope that these kinds of problems are left far behind it.
