The Pixel 10 Pro’s free AI Pro plan is a trap, don’t get fooled

The Pixel 10-series is Google’s most aggressive bet on AI yet. Year on year, the company keeps tacking on more AI-first features. From the camera to the notes app and elsewhere, the pitch is clear. This isn’t just another smartphone. Instead, it’s a showcase for how Google’s AI strategy ties directly to its hardware. But while the on-device LLM can do a lot, when it comes to heavy lifting, Google wants you to pop over into the Gemini app. More specifically, Gemini Pro. And to drive that point further, Google bundles in a free year of the Gemini AI Pro plan with the phone.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that the free year of Gemini Pro and 2TB of cloud storage are a key part of Google’s marketing to make the phone appear like a bargain. Two terabytes of cloud storage, access to Google’s best AI features, including Deep Research with Gemini 2.5 Pro. Add to that AI-enabled extras in access to AI filmmaking tools via Flow, image to video creation, and a 1000 monthly AI credits. Google even frames the cost of the phone as lower than it really is by subtracting the $239 value of the subscription’s sticker price. It sounds generous. Except, it is not. This perk is designed to funnel you into recurring payments, and storage is the bait.

Let’s start with the simpler of the two first. Two terabytes of free cloud storage sounds like a steal. It is a massive upgrade from the 15GB that comes with a standard Google account, though chances are you have been paying for an upgrade anyway. With 2TB, you get plenty of room to back up photos, videos, files, device data, and more. I get it. It’s convenient. Not only are your photos being backed up to cloud servers that don’t require any maintenance at your end, but these photos, videos, and files are then available across platforms via apps and browsers. If you want a no-nonsense approach to keeping your data secure, going cloud first is a viable strategy. But there is a catch.

Once you start backing up all your data to the cloud, you are locked in. When the first year’s trial plan runs out, you have to decide. Either downgrade the plan and lose access to files, start deleting data to match a lower paid tier, or accept the $20 monthly fee to keep everything. This is when Google’s free perk reveals its actual cost.

The reason is straightforward. Nobody wants to delete data, especially personal photos and videos. Once your files live in the cloud, walking away becomes harder than paying up. Yes, you could download everything, reorganize your storage, switch to another provider, or even self-host. But Google does not make that easy. Exporting terabytes of data is slow and messy. Family libraries, shared albums, and device backups make switching even more painful. Google knows this. The trial is not generosity. It is a customer acquisition spend to be written off by marketing.

This also masks Google’s hardware compromises. We are heading into the end of 2025, and the Pixel 10 Pro still ships with 128GB of storage as the base in many markets. That is a no-go for a flagship, especially when Apple and Samsung have moved to 256GB as the baseline. Google’s pitch is that the 2 TB of cloud storage makes up for it, but it does not.

Elsewhere, the math is equally flawed. Upgrading from 128GB to 256GB costs about $100 upfront. The jump from 256GB to 1TB on the Pixel 10 Pro XL? A one-time $350. That one-time payment gives you more space for the lifetime of the phone. Considering Google now promises seven years of updates, that is money well spent. Compare that with $20 a month for cloud storage. After the free year, you will be paying $240 annually. Keep the phone for its full seven-year support window, and you are at $1,440 just for storage. The $100 you saved on the base model has quickly turned into much more than the price of a brand-new phone.

Okay, fine. It’s not just storage that you get for free. Storage might be a basic need, but access to advanced AI can be pretty seductive too. The included year of free Gemini Pro unlocks Google’s most advanced model, the one capable of longer reasoning, better summaries, and more complex tasks. All of which can sound very appealing. You can use it to condense research papers, summarise long PDFs, draft emails, polish writing, create short video clips, or brainstorm ideas in NotebookLM. The pitch is that you spend a year weaving these tools into your workflow and come to rely on them enough that you will pay for the convenience once the trial ends.

The problem is that for most people, Gemini Pro is not essential. The free tier covers the basics well enough. Having access to the top-tier model is nice, but it is not necessary for day-to-day use. You might play around with it, you might even like it, but few will genuinely need to spend $20 a month to keep it. The difference between storage and AI is that you can walk away from the AI features without losing anything. Try unsubscribing from storage after a year, and you will see why that is impossible.

Google is not the first company to go down this path. Apple has been doing it for years. iCloud comes with just 5GB of free storage. The moment you set up your iPhone, backups and photo sync start eating through that quota unless you turn them off. Before long, you are nudged into paying $0.99 a month, then $2.99, then $9.99 as your library grows. The trick works, but Apple does not advertise that the iPhone is cheaper because of iCloud. Google is far more blatant. It promotes the Pixel 10 Pro as if subtracting the sticker price of Gemini Pro makes the phone a better deal. And it’s not subtle about it either. Head on over to the Google Store listing for the phone, and it’s right up there with the top benefits of buying a Pixel 10 Pro, right alongside trade-in benefits. Let’s be real here. In reality, the free Gemini AI Pro offer is a hook into a subscription cycle that is difficult to escape.

Samsung is also showing where this road leads. Galaxy AI launched as a free trial across the Galaxy S24 line, with Samsung mentioning that some of these tools could be locked behind a paywall at some point. That means the tools that help you translate calls, summarize notes, or clean up photos are being positioned as temporary freebies designed to make you reliant on them. Thankfully, that day hasn’t come yet for Samsung users. Google, on the other hand, is taking the same approach, only with a steeper price tag. The Pixel 10 Pro is not just a phone with AI built in. It is, regrettably, being positioned as a delivery mechanism for a subscription that Google hopes will outlast the life of the phone itself.

The Pixel 10 Pro may be one of the best phones Google has made, but the Gemini AI Pro bundle is not the deal it looks like. The AI features are interesting but not essential. The storage is useful, but it is also a trap. Once you start using it, quitting becomes nearly impossible without either losing data or paying up. And yes, I’m aware that you can just cancel it, or choose not to use it. But that’s besides the point.

So, if you are thinking about buying the Pixel 10 Pro, ignore the free subscription when you make your decision. Pay the extra $100 for a higher storage model and save yourself years of ongoing fees. The so-called free year of Gemini AI Pro is not free. It is bait, and the real cost only shows up a year later when it’s too late for you to go back.