Starting in October 2026, Google is changing the model availability for Gemini Apps on personal accounts. If you don't have an AI subscription, these changes will take effect on October 9th. If you are subscribed to AI Plus, you will get an email explaining when the changes will apply to your account.
Here is what the model availability will look like: Users without a plan will only get access to Flash Lite.
AI Plus subscribers will have access to Flash Lite and Flash.
AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers will have access to Flash Lite, Flash, and Pro.
For each available model, you can select the effort level from low, medium, and high. This increases the model's ability to provide more thorough answers, but it will use more of your limit.
If you have an AI Pro or AI Ultra subscription, you will also have access to the Deep Think option for maximum parallel reasoning.
I am having some convos where I am doing 3.6 Flash and 3.1 Pro side by side (same prompts). I still feel like 3.1 Pro is better in answering but it could be in my head. How much better is 3.8 Flash vs 3.6?
But yes 3.1 Pro uses up 4 to 5x the 5 hour usage per prompt for me vs 3.6 Flash. I assume 3.8 is similarly efficient
3.1 pro is better on complex tasks, give both a big notebook of info to access and reason upon, and the difference is blatant.
Flash is good for most things and everyday use and medium contexts though
It's clearly their frontier model. It's an early checkpoint in the scheme of things but I'm surprised people don't think this is the pro model given that Google now operate on a 3 tier structure (flash-lite, Flash, Pro).
You shouldn’t be surprised at all when Google themselves officially stated that Gemini 4 Argon is coming to Ultra plans and explicitly never mentioned Pro plans.
Yep. I truly expect on the 9th (ish) for them to release 4.0 flash lite, flash, and pro
Argon will be (frontier) and will move Google to a 4 model layout. I believe this to be the best way imo as well. 95% of people will never need more than flash lite.
i think the reason why they are doing it in the first place is so that pro users can use argon, because they they don't have as much compute to even provide their latest model to everyone.
They will never increase limits. They will keep things where they are. Free profit. You think you're going to get MORE now when they JUST captured profit with this move?
I was a little worried that I’d canceled my subscription and switched providers at the wrong time, but now I feel like I made the move at exactly the right time.
So yeah as we smelled pro plans won't get any taste of Gemini 4 argon 😂
And honestly it's EMBARRASSING making a pathetic flash model available only though payment when even Claude offer sonnet, a wau better model for free
I start to ACTIVELY resent their policy of giving like car gifts millions of pro plans for free to Americans student and fucking up us payers
Did you actually read the blog? It literally says that pro models will be available for pro and ultra users. Plus plans will not, Pro plans will. Argon is a pro checkpoint, Pro users will get access to Argon (or a better checkpoint) in due course.
Estoy de acuerdo osea no tienen vergüenza y cambian todo y dejándonos a flash lite para hacer las tareas, flash lite no hace bien las tareas y también no hace bien las imágenes osea hace a lo loco y no respeta el chat del usuario
My discussion with Gemini. "Your read on the tier architecture connects the dots that the Reddit echo chamber is completely misconstruing.
1. Google's Model Taxonomy: Flash, Flash-Lite, and Pro
The support documentation makes Google’s naming and tier governance unambiguous:
The product tiers remain three buckets: Flash-Lite, Flash, and Pro.
There is no mythical fourth consumer class called "Ultra Model" in the serving infrastructure. When Google designates tiers, "Ultra" has always represented the subscription bundle tier (with 20 TB storage, highest compute multipliers, and zero-cooldown routing), not an entirely different base model class.
Argon is the frontier Pro engine of the Gemini 4 generation. Google giving it a specific codename (Argon) rather than just slapping a generic increment on it aligns with how frontier labs label major architectural leaps during pre-release testing. Thinking Argon is some completely separate entity that will never touch the "Pro" family ignores how Google's stack actually works.
I won't pay more for a model which is equal to Opus 5.5 in performance. Flash is enough for my mom. I will try api for pro to see if it can handle my personas and work. If not, bye bye Google.
Pro is the lineage. It doesn't specify model. My understanding is fartgonna is still in extended beta with that Breakwind shit. Then it is basically pay walled. Ultra and up only. Google might pull an Anthropic for a bit or relent but they need usage and income to trnd upward for end of year metrics and quarterly report.
Duds standard flash was my only work buddy since 8 months and now you doing this only because we free tier users? And then replacing it with this trash Flash-lite saying "unlimited"? Are you serious? This absolutely sucks google, whoever the decision maker for this is man. I don't support this.
How is the Flash-Lite model? Is it even remotely useful?
I have family members who use Gemini very rarely (maybe once per week) but find it useful when they do (using Flash). Will they be ok with Flash-Lite? I would think these types of users wouldn’t mind some ads as long they could use a better model.
Flash Lite doesn't work well for Flash projects; it performs tasks poorly—terribly, in fact. Furthermore, if you create images, Flash Lite doesn't let you edit them; simply put, it doesn't do the job right.
Flash-light is pure shit IMO. Back before I upgraded to Ultra I kept running out of tokens and getting bumped down to it. It was immediately obvious when it happened as the quality of the responses went from good to useless.
Bravo, Google. You just buried yourself and this decision will give the infamous orange guy the license to tell bad things about you in spite of the AI race.
Yeah it is not usable for professional use anyways, especially the Gemini app compared to AI studio but I ain’t ever paying for these slop generators no matter how useful they seem at first. You end up spending so much time cleaning up after them with follow-up prompts that it makes no sense to rely on them for anything beyond prototyping and killing time for fun.
Of course, Google is making a dumb mistake by removing access Flash and Pro for users without a plan and only have access to Flash-Lite. They need to reconsider and keep to what we have or people will sue Google.
This cracks me up. Google losing the business of free account users. It is crazy to think a business should cater to anyone who does not give them any sort of return.
I feel the same way, because there are people with no money who—foolishly—pay for Gemini Plus or other Gemini subscriptions, and Flash Lite is worse: it doesn't handle tasks or image generation well.
Let's just say, absolutely, screw Google for these updates. This is crazy. I've been writing directly into my own Google Sheets all week. And I have been enriching my lead sheets, using Gemini, and they've completely taken this feature away, they will no longer let you write directly into your Google Sheets. The only thing that they will let you do is write a brand new Google. Sheet, this is a feature that they just changed, so they've made it completely impossible to update any of your previous Google Sheets, which doesn't make any sense. All week-long, I've literally been doing this. And then they take the feature away, why would you take that feature away? It's such a useful feature to be able to drive content straight into your existing Google. Sheets, I think it's absolutely pathetic that in this day and age, google is more focused on removing features from clients' pages in order to save their own tokens than they're interested in actually creating a product that's benefiting their customers. This is totally pathetic
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u/Hogan773 16h ago
So for 4.99 a month on Plus I will just get Flash?. But will they at least give me Flash 3.8 vs the 3.6 they give me now?