Google "Bard" no longer exists. Almost exactly a year after it first challenged OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google is retiring the Bard name and renaming it Gemini, which will be the name of its base model series. But more importantly, the company has now also launched GeminiUltra, its most capable large-scale language model yet.

However, GeminiUltra will require paid experience. Google will offer it through a new $20 Google One tier (with a two-month free trial), which also includes 2TB of storage and the rest of Google One's feature set, as well as access to Gemini in Google Workspace apps like Docs, Slides, Sheet, and Meet. In addition, Google will also cancel the DuetAI brand and also transfer it to Gemini.

In addition, Google will launch a new Gemini app for Android and bring it to the Google app for iOS. As for developers looking to gain access to the Ultra model API, Google says it will have more information to share in the coming weeks.

The Gemini Ultra version will be available in more than 150 countries and regions, but is currently only available in English. Japanese and Korean will be the next added languages.

When Google first released Gemini, it only offered the GeminiPro package through Bart. Google said at the time that GeminiPro's performance roughly reached the level of GPT-3.5, but with the widespread popularity of GPT-4, this statement feels a bit underconfident. At the time, Google said the flagship model Gemini Ultra would be launched to consumers in early 2024 after a round of private testing. Although the company didn't say it, the understanding at the time was that the Ultra model would be part of a paid plan, then called BartAdvanced and now GeminiAdvanced.

"Gemini Ultra 1.0 is a model that achieves state-of-the-art performance on a variety of benchmarks for text, images, audio, and video," Google's Sissie Hasiao said in a press conference ahead of today's launch. "For Google, Gemini is more than just a model. From a product that impacts billions of users, to an API and platform that developers and enterprises use to innovate, it's really a shift in the way we think about state-of-the-art technology and the entire ecosystem we're building on top of it."


There won’t be any major changes for free users. However, users who choose to pay for GeminiAdvanced will get the GeminiUltra1.0 model. As for how good GeminiUltra1.0 is, we still have to try it ourselves. Google itself was coy about its capabilities during a press conference this week."With access to our Ultra 1.0 models, Gemini Premium is much more capable at highly complex tasks, which can be applied in a range of areas including coding, logical reasoning, following subtle instructions and creative collaboration," Hasiao explained. "Not only can you write longer prompts, but you can also better understand the context of previous prompts. Notably, Gemini Ultra 1.0 also has multi-model capabilities, which allows you to engage in conversations about images, for example."

Currently, most advanced AI chat tools, including ChatGPT, cost $20 per month. Google's advantage here is that it can layer these additional features on top without incurring too much additional cost (after all, these existing Google One storage plans are probably already quite profitable).

Another great deal is that even if you are already a Google One user, you can get a two-month free trial if you upgrade to the new AIPremium plan.