Google drops its most expensive AI Ultra pricing and adds new, lower tier

You’ve got no shortage of free options for experimenting with AI, but getting access to the best, latest features or overcoming usage limits often requires the use of a premium, paid plan. Google’s already had three offerings like that, between AI Plus for just about $8/month, AI Pro for $20/month, or the top-tier AI Ultra at $250/month. If you needed more access than Pro afforded, but weren’t quite willing to pay for Ultra, Google has some good news to share at I/O this year, as it overhauls its approach to Ultra pricing.

While we appreciate that Google has broken down its AI subscription tiers to offer a variety of price points, it’s been impossible to ignore that huge gap between AI Pro and AI Ultra. Earlier this month, we found reference to something called “AI Ultra Lite” in a Gemini app update, getting us excited that a new option could be on the way, presumably delivering a compromise between the existing levels. Not only are we getting just that, but Google’s also lowering the price for full-blown AI Ultra.

We’re not yet seeing Google use that “Lite” branding, but we are indeed getting a new tier: Google AI Ultra is lowering its base price all the way down to just under $100/month. That looks like it’s set to include many of the features from the old $250 tier, but you shouldn’t be surprised if that involves lower usage limits.

For users who still want the biggest and best access to Gemini, the highest-end Ultra tier will remain, but Google’s dropping its price down to $200/month. You’ll need this plan in order to use some of Gemini’s most impressive, newest tools like the scene-building Project Genie.

While pricing for the AI Plus and AI Pro levels isn’t changing, the feature sets they offer are being refreshed to reflect the latest Gemini tools debuting today at I/O. And although free YouTube Premium remains an Ultra-level perk, Google’s finally extending Premium Lite to AI Pro plans, as a nice bonus.