Google’s Strange Decision to Not Undercut OpenAI and Microsoft; OpenAI’s Secret Agents

I’m Kalley, a reporter covering Meta Platforms and social media. I’m now regularly contributing to AI Agenda.

Google this morning launched Gemini Ultra, the long-awaited flagship version of its most advanced large language model. It also renamed its ChatGPT rival to Gemini from Bard, which seemed like a logical move. These announcements had already leaked over the weekend in an accidental post by Google, but how Google is rolling out Ultra to the public—by bundling it with other consumer products it sells for a fee—is making us scratch our heads. 

Starting today, the Gemini chatbot powered by Ultra, which Google says performs better than OpenAI’s GPT-4 on some benchmarks, will only be available to consumers through Google One, a subscription service that provides extra cloud storage and editing features in Google Photos. (Buyer beware: Google Photos is known to lose images taken on Leap Day, which is coming up.) The new tier will cost $19.99 per month, double the cost of the current premium bundle. In other words, Google is effectively pricing Ultra at $10 per month. The bundle also includes Gemini-powered features in apps such as Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets and Meet, including analyzing data in spreadsheets and creating backgrounds for virtual meetings.

OpenAI charges $20 per month for the most advanced version of ChatGPT, without those additional productivity features. So Google’s Ultra-powered chatbot may look like a deal compared to ChatGPT, even as part of a mish-mash bundle with cloud storage.