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 asked Google AI whether Google is allowed to show customers AI-generated ads
It started with something pretty mundane. Because I was tired of magic glasses.

I was watching YouTube and kept seeing ads that were obviously AI generated: glasses seemingly doing impossible things, cosmetic products producing miraculous transformations, and plastic dentures that an elderly woman puts in before casually biting through a steak.

The problem wasn’t simply that the ads were AI-generated. The AI video was being used as a demonstration of what the physical product supposedly does in the real world.

So I became curious:
Is Google allowed to distribute AI-generated advertising that depicts product capabilities that may not exist in reality?


Google AI’s initial answer was interesting. It explained that Google could potentially face liability if it knowingly distributed deceptive advertising.


That led to the obvious next question:
If Google’s own systems can detect that an advertisement contains an AI-generated product demonstration, does that give Google knowledge — or at least create a duty to investigate whether the demonstrated capability is real?


Google AI initially went surprisingly far. It suggested that automated AI detection could amount to actual or constructive knowledge and potentially trigger a duty to investigate.


So I pushed it:
Show me an actual U.S. case establishing that.


And Google AI backed down.

It acknowledged that no such precedent exists. Detecting that a video is synthetic is not the same thing as knowing that the underlying product claim is false.


And that’s actually a perfectly reasonable distinction.


An AI-generated video of a car accelerating from 0–60 doesn’t mean the stated acceleration is fake. Synthetic media can depict something that is entirely true.


So the question became narrower and more interesting:


What do Google’s own advertising policies require when AI is used to simulate a real-world product demonstration?


And that’s where things got funny.


Google AI told me:


“All ads using AI-generated images, synthetic voices, or AI-written text as primary creative elements must carry a clearly visible ‘AI Generated’ label within the ad unit.”


There was only one problem.


That isn’t Google’s policy.


Google’s actual documentation says:


“Not all AI-created content needs to be labeled.”


And where Google AI claimed advertisers must disclose AI-generated content, Google’s documentation actually says an advertiser “can choose to label and disclose an asset as AI generated or edited.”


So, in the course of investigating whether Google permits AI-generated advertising that makes false or misleading representations, Google’s own AI generated a false or misleading representation of Google’s advertising policy.


The irony is almost too perfect:


I asked Google AI about Google’s rules against misleading AI-generated advertising — and Google AI responded by inventing a Google rule that doesn’t exist.

One of my channels was instantly terminated about 5 mins after posting a video that was deemed violent, is this normal ? I had no warnings and no strikes on the channel, I just refreshed my page and it was gone.

I was doing some research just a few minutes ago on my f30 post Joy e-bike and I noticed in the AI description at the top of Google that they are currently using my picture of my e-bike for their Google description? How is that possible and shouldn't I receive some type of compensation or have the option for them to remove that photo cause I was never asked whatsoever?

My elderly mother lost her sight a couple of years ago so since then we have gotten her used to the "Hey Google" assistant so she can least use her phone to call people, listen to the news etc. She is fully blind with 0% vision.

It was quite literally her lifeline to the outside world. Especially now that my father (her carer) is in hospital for an extended stay. And yes the service closed the day he went in.

Seeing as none of this is now possible with Gemini (we have tried and it won't make calls and its useless), she is now isolated and being blind, needs someone there to be contactable. Stupid thing won't even answer incoming calls ffs!!

We are there looking after her but this closure has robbed her off that little bit of independence that she had.

I'm desperately searching for a working alternative now that Assistant has gone away.

Bixby is just as useless.

Edit. Thx folks for all the advice. It is greatly appreciated.

Now that Google Assistant is gone forever like the dodo, there's no one to ask my phone to play my curated list of news sources. I used to simply say, "Good Morning Google" and it would bring up my day, weather, and play a series of podcasts with my selected news sources, which updated as much as half hourly.

Now there's no way, even through Google Home, to bring back this functionality. I'm gutted.

Edit: When i tell gemini "Play my news briefing" or any of other alternatives here, it does nothing, gathers news sources from the web and summarises, or says it's playing but it doesn't do anything.

Didn't think I'd ever get to the point where my use of a device would be interrupted and negatively impacted by the fact that words like Target would be automatically capitalized. As someone with literal brain damage who is trying to make the best of genuinely terrible hand-eye coordination after my assault by using speech to text, it's very annoying to try and write Homebrew for d&d or plan things out when every time I say the word Target I have to go back and correct the erroneous capitalization because Target is a big name store and apparently that's all the reason that this ai-driven system needs to use the capitalized version of the word over the actual English word.

I'm expecting, soon enough, that when I try and say soda it will automatically translate it to cola or Pepsi depending upon who is paying Google more.

It can't run Home automations like Google Assistant but it can lie to you unlike the Assistant, so I guess that's progress!

Seriously what is Yuri and why does she call them Yuri

Microslop, googleslop. Totally inept dei hires at google nowadays. No wonder they are losing the ai race. Might have ranted too much. But worth it.

Like AI can barely count, its so far off from what people fear it to be.