Key Takeaways
- Gemini Live is now free for Gemini Android app users in English.
- Gemini Advanced retains other exclusive features like Gmail integration.
- Gemini Live will eventually be available in other languages and on iOS.
What was once one of Gemini’s most interesting paid features is now free. Google says that Gemini Live, a feature in the Gemini app that lets users converse back and forth with the Gemini chatbot hands-free and without the need for hotwords, is rolling out to free users now. Accessing Gemini Live had previously required a paid Gemini Advanced subscription.
The change was announced through the official Google Gemini X account today. Gemini Live is a way to interact with Gemini that mimics the flow of a natural conversation; you can ask follow-up questions and even interrupt Gemini in the middle of its answers to ask follow-ups or redirect the chatbot to other topics.
It’s important to note that Google has only said Gemini Live will be free for people using the Gemini app on Android in English, but those same limitations applied when it was a paid feature, too. (Google said in August that Gemini Live would expand to more languages and iOS “in the coming weeks.”)
Gemini Advanced loses a standout feature
The $20-per-month AI Premium Plan gets a little less appealing
Whether the ability to string queries together without saying “hey Google” more than once deserved to be a paid Gemini Advanced feature in the first place is up for debate, but Live coming to the free version of Gemini gives users one less reason to pay for Google’s premium AI experience.
Gemini Advanced is included in the Google One AI Premium Plan, which also comes with two terabytes of cloud storage space. The AI Premium Plan costs $20 per month, and new Google Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold purchases come with a free year of the plan.
Features still exclusive to the paid version of Gemini include integration with other Google services like Gmail; a larger context window that means Gemini can ingest more input at once; and the ability to create purpose-built Gemini chatbots called Gems.
