Google might start charging for access to search results that use generative artificial intelligence tools. That’s according to a new Financial Times report citing “three people with knowledge of [Google’s] plans.”
Charging for any part of the search engine at the core of its business would be a first for Google, which has funded its search product solely with ads since 2000. But it’s far from the first time Google would charge for AI enhancements in general; the “AI Premium” tier of a Google One subscription costs $10 more per month than a standard “Premium” plan, for instance, while “Gemini Business” adds $20 a month to a standard Google Workspace subscription.
While those paid products offer access to Google’s high-end “Gemini Advanced” AI model, Google also offers free access to its less performant, plain “Gemini” model without any kind of paid subscription.
I’m all for this!
It’s what basically every other AI tool wants to do, because building and operating LLM’s at this scale is horrifically expensive.
So let them do it. Those that want these tools will pay, and the 99.999% of people that don’t give a fuck about AI can just continue as normal.
Hell, if Google want to deshitify their search by removing the ML nonsense they’ve been loading into it for the last decade or so, even better! Let me pay for that too, and I’ll pay them exactly nothing.