As announced last week, Google is rolling out a big change to the Gemini app experience for users on the free plan. Additionally, everyone is getting access to thinking or “effort” levels.
Free users “without a plan” can no longer manually switch models. Officially, their only option in the picker is “Auto” with “Gemini 3 models.” Last week, Google’s support documentation referred to it as (3.5) Flash-Lite.
Google says: “Gemini will use auto model selection to send each prompt to the Gemini model that suits it best. Most prompts will go to Flash-Lite, our fastest model. Prompts that need deeper reasoning may go to Flash or Pro.”
Meanwhile:
If smart model selection is turned off, chats for users without an AI plan will use Flash-Lite for all responses.
Google is also rolling out new “effort levels” that replace the previous “Extended” option. These three choices align with “thinking levels” in Google AI Studio and Antigravity:
- Low: Quick and efficient
- Medium: Balanced depth
- High: Extra thorough
We’re seeing the free change rolled out on the vast majority of our free accounts this evening (PT). Google appears to be rolling out this update quite quickly.
The new effort levels will be available to all subscribers, and are also in the process of rolling out.
Meanwhile, Google AI Plus users will soon be limited to Flash-Lite and (3.8) Flash.
Old vs. new
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