Google used its annual developer conference to show how many people now rely on its Gemini assistant, and to make its most expensive plan much cheaper. At Google I/O on May 19, chief executive Sundar Pichai said the Gemini app had passed 900 million monthly active users, more than double the 400 million it reported a year earlier. Alongside that, Google reworked its paid plans and cut the entry price of its top Ultra tier from $249.99 to $99.99 a month.
The two moves fit together. Google is trying to turn a large free audience into paying subscribers before rivals settle those users elsewhere. The company kept AI Plus at $7.99 and AI Pro at $19.99, then split Ultra in two: a new $99.99 plan aimed at developers and heavy users, and a repositioned top tier whose price fell from $250 to $200 a month.
User growth was the backdrop for the price change. Pichai said AI Mode in Google Search had crossed 1 billion monthly users, and that Google now processes more than 3.2 quadrillion tokens a month, up from 480 trillion a year ago. Both jumps rest on a new default engine. Google made Gemini 3.5 Flash generally available the same day and set it as the standard model across the Gemini app, Search, and its developer tools. Google says the model beats last year's flagship, Gemini 3.1 Pro, on coding and agent benchmarks while running about four times faster.
The cheaper Ultra plan is also a sales pitch for a new product. It includes Gemini Spark, described by Google as a 24/7 agent that can take actions on a user's behalf, connected to Gmail, Docs, and outside apps. Spark is starting as a U.S.-only beta.
Beyond the headline numbers, the picture is more mixed than a simple price cut. The cost of running Gemini 3.5 Flash through Google's programming interface actually went up. Independent developer Simon Willison noted the model now costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $9 per million output tokens, which he called three times the price of the earlier 3 Flash Preview and close to what Google charges for its Pro model. He read the wider pattern as the major labs testing what customers will pay: "All three of the major AI labs are starting to probe the price tolerance of their API customers."
That tension defines the moment. Consumers get more for less, while the developers building on top of Gemini pay more per request. The cheaper Ultra plan also squeezes competitors, since neither OpenAI nor Anthropic offers a comparable option between their $20 and $200 tiers.
What to watch is whether Google can convert its 900 million users into paying ones, and whether the delayed Gemini 3.5 Pro arrives on the higher price it hinted at. If it does, the gap between a cheaper front door and pricier professional access will widen, and rivals will have to decide whether to follow Google's pricing or hold their ground.
