Google is offering free AI in Gmail and Docs, but is increasing the price of Workspace

If you wanted to operate all of Google’s AI features in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and the rest of the Workspace suite, you previously had to spend another $20 per user per month on the Gemini Business plan. It’s free from Tuesday. Google is making all AI features available in its Workspace app at no additional cost, racing against Microsoft, OpenAI and others to create the AI-powered office suite of the future.

There’s a catch, though: With this change, Google is increasing the price of all Workspace plans. Jerry Dischler, Google’s president of cloud applications, tells me that companies will pay about $2 per month more per user for AI-enabled Workspace than before. (The numbers are not exact because companies have elaborate and varying contracts, but the base subscription price was $12 a month and will now be $14).

Workspace AI includes features such as email summaries in Gmail, generated spreadsheet and video designs, an automatic meeting note recorder, the powerful NotebookLM research assistant, and in-app writing tools. It also provides access to the Gemini bot itself, which is arguably Google’s most powerful AI-based tool; The bot can perform standard chatbot tasks, but can also aid you find information, search all your stuff, and more.

Dischler points out that Google is currently the most vertically integrated AI product, but that only matters if people operate the entire system. Now everyone can. “In most cases, when we talk to companies using AI, their biggest obstacle is financial considerations,” he says. “That’s why they enter so carefully. It’s like, “Wow, that’s a lot of money and let’s prove the value.” Okay, now you have artificial intelligence. You have value.” He says that the roadmaps for various apps are also already changing and that novel features will start rolling out quickly.

Google isn’t the only company phasing out AI subsidies: Microsoft announced in November that its own Copilot Pro AI features, which were also previously available for a $20 monthly upgrade, will become part of the standard Microsoft 365 subscription. For now, this applies it’s only Personal and Family subscriptions and only in a few places. However, all of these companies understand that this is their moment to teach people novel ways to operate their products and acquire novel customers in the process. They are betting that the cost of implementing all AI features for everyone will be worth it in the long run.