If you’re wondering why your work’s Gmail account, Docs, and just about every other Google-branded product is suddenly infested with the company’s Gemini AI assistant, it’s because our search overlords have willed it. This accounts for them ditching the $20/m per user entry fee previously required for such… functionality.
The addition of AI tools into the very fabric of Google’s Workspace suite is technically an upgrade over the old model, except you’re stuck footing the bill. Before, the basic plan would set you back $14/m (R260) per user. Now Google’s upped that by $2 across all plans, bringing the total up to at least $16. But hey, at least you’re getting AI you never asked for, right?
Gemini? I’m a Leo
“Businesses that embrace AI are gaining a significant competitive edge, but many are unsure how to start or struggle with the cost of adopting new technologies,” Google’s President of cloud applications, Jerry Dischler, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
“To address this need, we’re announcing that the best of Google AI is now included in Workspace Business and Enterprise plans, giving every business the tools they need to innovate for tomorrow.”
Specifically, Google’s Gemini has inserted itself across the entire Workspace suite – meaning Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet, Chat, Vids, “and more”. It’s difficult to miss Gemini’s little star plastered to whichever app you open first before it starts the hard sell, convincing you that the extra $2/m per user is totally worth the price increase.
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With Workspace AI running the show, customers can have entire email chains summarised in a couple of seconds, or have a draft written for them and ready to go in the same time in Gmail. Or, they can ask the AI to create spreadsheets if given it the necessary data in Docs. But easily the best bit of the whole integration? Notebook LM Plus. You know, Google’s in-house AI tool that’ll turn your data into what is essentially a podcast.
Google tells us it’s doing all this to simplify the pricing scheme, and definitely not to artificially inflate its dwindling Gemini numbers (and make an extra couple of bucks every month). The new structure came into effect today, 17 January, though existing customers will only see the updated prices from 17 March 2025. “Very small businesses” will escape the price hike (for now), though Google doesn’t mention any sort of threshold.
