Early last month, I wrote about how Google was starting to roll out the newest Gemini Live features, including screen sharing and live video. Originally codenamed Project Astra, the features have slowly become available across multiple Android devices. But, if you were hoping to get open access to the newest Gemini Live AI video features, Google has news: you’ll need to pay for a Gemini Advanced subscription to use them.
That’s right, a new support document about the features—which Google claims are still rolling out to new Android devices slowly—will require an Android device running Android 10 or later and a Gemini Advanced subscription.
You can subscribe to Gemini Advanced as part of Google’s AI Premium Plan, which costs $19.99 a month. It also gives you access to Gemini’s best models, upgraded limits, and other perks like increased Google Drive storage space. It’s not a terrible deal, considering it’s on par with other AI services like ChatGPT Plus and comes with some other goodies, too.
The disappointment, though, lies in that many hopes that Gemini Live’s AI video features would be available to the general public without a subscription. While it might have been a longshot hope, it was still something that many had crossed their fingers for. However, it makes sense that Google would tie what it considers one of Gemini’s more useful features behind a paywall.
AI services like Gemini are exorbitantly expensive to run, so Google is going to be looking for ways to make money off its features in any way that it can. That said, it could very well release versions of the Gemini Live video functionality to the free version of Gemini somewhere down the line.
The support document also says you’ll need to have the Gemini app installed—or be using Gemini as your Google Assistant—to make use of Gemini Live’s AI video functionality. For now, Gemini Live screen sharing and video capture won’t work on the Gemini web app. That could change in the future, though.
Considering AI is getting good enough to pass the Turing Test and fool humans into thinking they’re talking to real humans, these tools are only going to become more prevalent as they continue to be updated and improved.
