Google’s AI push is changing what it means to buy an Android phone

Scan through this year’s Google I/O announcements, and you’ll find two defining, interlocking themes. AI now permeates nearly every Google product; Search, Shopping, and even YouTube have all received the Gemini treatment to varying degrees. Likewise, Android’s Gemini app is set for an overhaul with a new “Neural Expressive” UI, Spark, and Daily Brief — making it an even more powerful hub for Google’s latest AI features right on your phone.

However, if you want to actually make use of Docs Live, Gemini Omni Flash, Gemini Spark, Information Agents, Google Pics, or the new Daily Brief, you’re going to have to hand over cash every month for a Gemini subscription. That’s right, most of the “exciting” new features Google has to talk about will require a Google AI Plus, Pro, or Ultra subscription.

These plans aren’t exactly cheap if you just want to dabble in the odd morning briefing. Prices start at $7.99 a month ($95.88 a year) for Plus and rising to $200 per month for the highest Ultra tier. There is now a more “affordable” $100 a month Ultra tier if you don’t require mammoth usage limits.

To be fair to Google, it throws quite a lot of features at its subscription tiers, which actually span a huge range of its products despite the “Google AI” moniker used here. The basic plan comes with 200GB of cloud storage, family sharing, more NotebookLM features, Deep Research in Gemini, and access to the new Gemini 3.5 Flash model. Pro might be an even better deal, giving you 5TB of storage, more generous AI coding limits, and YouTube Premium Lite bundled in for $19.99 a month.

If you use all of these perks on a regular basis, Google’s AI subscriptions represent fair or even good value for money. However, you can’t pick and choose the odd feature; it’s all or nothing. This is especially irksome for consumers outside the US who pay very similar costs yet can’t access Daily Brief, Gemini Spark, AI Inbox in Gmail, Ask YouTube, and more.

But that’s almost beside the point. These features are deeply embedded in apps across Google’s broader ecosystem, even if consumers still tend to conflate Google services with Android itself.

For years, Android’s value proposition was simple: buy the hardware once, and Google’s software innovations largely arrived for free. Features like HDR photography, voice assistants, and cloud sync were once used to sell hardware and ecosystems. Now, AI capabilities are increasingly being separated into premium subscription layers.

Generative AI changes that equation because modern AI systems are expensive to run continuously at scale. Google no longer sees advanced software features purely as ecosystem incentives; increasingly, they are cloud services designed to generate ongoing revenue.

What’s striking is not just what Google announced, but what it didn’t. Core platform improvements — Android TV performance, tablet optimization, battery efficiency, broader OS innovation — took a back seat to monetizable AI services.

And before you say it: Yes, May’s Android Show had some cool new stuff. Googlebooks are on the way, and the new tools set to arrive with Gemini Intelligence will run locally on-device, eschewing the subscription costs associated with the new features unveiled at I/O 2026. However, seemingly restrictive requirements (including 12GB of RAM and Gemini Nano V3 support) mean that few current devices will be able to use the new Intelligence features, not even last year’s Pixel 9 series.

The direction of travel is clear: Google is pushing AI harder and harder to redefine its ecosystem and bring new, powerful features to users. Android’s core OS remains free, but Google increasingly appears to view it less as a product and more as a delivery mechanism for its AI services. As those services become more central to the modern smartphone experience, many of the platform’s most ambitious features are also becoming subscription products.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow when, only a few years ago, OG Pixel owners were wooed with the promises of free Photos storage. Or more recently, the Gemini Live camera was backported to the Pixel 9. Google might even offer a few free months of Google One / AI with your expensive new Pixel purchase, but if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest AI features in the long-term, you’re going to have to start forking out every month.

The smartphone industry spent over a decade convincing consumers to pay more upfront for better hardware while software steadily improved for free. AI is reversing that model. Increasingly, buying the phone is only the entry fee; the most ambitious software experiences now require a continuing subscription.

Owning a flagship smartphone has never been more expensive.