Google Gemini Advanced is the paid-for, "advanced" version of Google's Gemini chatbot. It's based on a more capable language model than the standard Gemini, known as Gemini 1.5 Pro, and unlocks a number of additional abilities for the tool over the free version.

This guide will help you decide if the monthly fee is worth paying, or whether the freely available Google Gemini, or other chatbots like ChatGPT, might be a better fit for your needs.

What Is Gemini Advanced?

Google Gemini Advanced is based on Google's next-generation Gemini 1.5 Pro language model. It unlocks not only new abilities in the AI as it currently exists, but priority access to future features, too. For now, it lets you run and test code directly within Google Gemini, and lets you generate effective images from a text prompt.

It also unlocks additional file upload capabilities, and gives you as many as a million tokens within each prompt, so you can ask much more complicated questions and make more detailed requests than the standard free model. It also unlocks additional features with other Google services, such as using the AI in Docs and Gmail, and gives you additional Google One cloud storage space.

Who Should Subscribe to Google Gemini Advanced?

Google Gemini Advanced is perfect for some users. Consider subscribing if you:

• Haven't subscribed to another advanced chatbot like ChatGPT Plus.
• Use Google services heavily and would benefit from the additional AI integration and storage space,
• Are already a Gemini user and want help with coding or the ability to issue longer prompts and larger file uploads.
• Are excited about Google's future AI developments.

Who Shouldn't Subscribe to Google Gemini Advanced?

As great as it is, Google Gemini Advanced isn't for everyone. Consider passing this one by if you:

• Already use an advanced AI service like ChatGPT Plus.
• Don't use Google services.
• Have no need for advanced AI features like coding help, image generation, or lengthy prompt inputs.
• Are already satisfied with using free AI like ChatGPT or the standard Google Gemini.
• Anyone who isn't fluent in English. While Gemini Advanced language support is expanding, it's still its best when using English.

Why You Should Subscribe to Google Gemini Advanced

Gemini Advanced can do plenty, and it may be a good fit for you for the following reasons.

You're a Big Google Services User

If you spend all day every day using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, or a range of other Google services, then Google Gemini Advanced could be a great fit for you.

It'll give you loads more storage space (2TB at the time of writing) and unlock a range of new AI features in Google's platforms and tools. Even if you don't make use of all of them right away, having that additional functionality can be a great way to boost your email writing skills, speed up your workflow in Docs, or unlock easier calculations and data analytics in Sheets.

Google is likely to expand its AI integration with its various online Office-like products in the coming months and years, too, so this capability is only likely to improve.

It Can Help With Coding

If you're a programmer and you already use the free tools like ChatGPT to help with coding, Google Gemini Advanced can now help you with a range of programming languages, including HTML, CSS, Python, and JavaScript, among others.

It's not exactly clear yet how well this particular function compares with the likes of ChatGPT Plus, but if you don't already pay for an advanced chatbot for coding assistance, Google's Gemini Advanced is excellent. It can be a real help if you're just starting out or want someone else to help you track down bugs; chatbots are great at spotting syntax errors.

It's Great at Augmenting Google Search

Unlike most other chatbots, Google Gemini is going into Google's primary search product, and it's already showing some promise. Working with real-time data more than the competition gives Gemini Advanced some interesting capabilities that are worth exploring.

While you can tap into the free version of Gemini by searching on Google and waiting for the AI-generated response, you can also use Gemini Advanced for Google Search-like tasks.

For example, ask it to find a good restaurant of a particular type in a specific location, and it'll spit out some impressive results. Thanks to the advanced language model, it can consider far more points of import than a standard Google search, including allergies, food types, or pricing information.

You can also use it to help you plan a trip, book flights and hotels, or just find something fun to do for children of different ages on a certain day.

Gemini is like an advanced Google search tool when it works correctly, and Gemini Advanced is just the next evolution of that.

It Can Generate Images Now

While the more image-focused chatbots like Dall-E (and its integration with ChatGPT) arguably produce better quality pictures with a greater degree of accuracy to your prompt, Gemini Advanced is a capable tool, too.

If you don't already have a subscription with one of the various chatbots or generative image tools and like Gemini, then Gemini Advanced is much better at working with images and can do more with them.

Why You Shouldn't Subscribe to Google Gemini Advanced

Google Gemini Advanced isn't for everyone, especially since other options are available that might work better for your particular needs. The following are some reasons you should save your money.

It's Not as Good as ChatGPT Plus

If you're already a ChatGPT Plus user, you won't see much benefit to switching to Google Gemini Advanced instead.

Gemini is a better tool for working with Google services, but outside of that, ChatGPT does just as good a job as Gemini and in some cases, it's better. ChatGPT Plus' image generation is more nuanced, its coding assistance is more established, and the custom GPT options let you customize and personalize ChatGPT in ways you can't with Gemini Advanced yet.

While you can make your own custom GPTs with Gemini Gemini, there isn't an established market of usable GPTs to select from.

Even the free version of Dall-E and ChatGPT offer some of the capabilities of Gemini Advanced, making it a harder sell to anyone who already enjoys using those platforms.

Inaccuracies Abound

Chatbots are known to be confidently wrong at times, and Gemini Advanced is no different. While it is smarter than the standard Gemini and accuracy is improving, its drive towards using real-time data and search-like functions means accuracy is more important than if it's generating an image or text.

Gemini Advanced does have the option to double-check the response via Google, but doing that every time to ensure accuracy is no fun and makes the whole purpose of using the chatbot kind of redundant.

Errors Are Common, Too

Sure, chatbots are a new and emerging technology, but their public-facing versions shouldn't be quite as error-prone as this. Gemini Advanced will fail on basic requests seemingly at random, and it will occasionally tell you it can't do things that it can. Or, it'll just crash out and require a refresh of the page.

Other chatbots do this too, but if you're considering spending, the fact that you can still encounter errors is a real negative on this service.

Gemini vs. Gemini Advanced

• Free.

• Uses the older 1.5 Flash model.

• Is limited to 32,000 token context.

• Has live web search.

• Can edit and generate text.

• Costs monthly (one month free).

• Uses the Gemini 1.5 Pro model.

• Has a 1m token context window.

• Gives you access to new features first.

• Integrates with Docs, Sheets, Gmail.

• Lets you run and edit code within a prompt.

• Can generate text and images.

• Can search the web.

• Additional 2TB of Google One storage.

Gemini is available for free to anyone who wants to use it, while Gemini Advanced is restricted to those who pay the monthly subscription. While both are capable chatbots, the advanced model is far more capable. It just depends whether those features and abilities are worth your subscription price.