Google announced Thursday that its AI chatbot Gemini will now be available to all Mac and Windows desktop users in the United States without a subscription.
Google announced Thursday that it's making its AI chatbot available to all U.S. users for free. File Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA UPI
Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Google announced Thursday that its artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini now will be available to all Mac and Windows desktop users in the United States without a subscription.
In the past, users had to have a Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra subscription.
The company also announced that Gemini will have agentic capabilities in Chrome, AI Mode in the address bar, automatic password resets, and ability for AI to combat scams.
The chatbot already is available on Android and soon will be available for iOS users.
Agentic capabilities will come soon, meaning Gemini becomes your own personal assistant. It will let Gemini in Chrome take care of tedious tasks, "like booking a haircut or ordering your weekly groceries," Google said. OpenAI launched its own agent, Operator, earlier this year.
Gemini in Chrome can now work across multiple tabs, so you quickly can compare and summarize information across multiple websites. An example Google gives is planning your flight, hotel and vacation activities across multiple tabs. Gemini in Chrome can help you consolidate that information into a single itinerary.
Google is also integrating Gemini into several Google apps. For example, if you want to find a certain part of a YouTube video, Gemini can do that for you. If you paste a YouTube video link into the chatbot, it can generate a transcript of it.
Users can use AI Mode to search within a page, so if you have questions about a product you're researching, you can ask Gemini instead of reading through the whole page.
Gemini also will change your compromised passwords with one click on certain websites, adding a bit more security.
If you can't find a website you know you recently visited, Gemini can help you find it, Google said. Soon, you'll be able to use Gemini in Chrome to recall it for you. Once launched, "you can try prompts like 'what was the website that I saw the walnut desk on last week?' or 'what was that blog I read on back to school shopping?'"
Earlier this month, Google learned that it will not be forced to sell off Chrome or its Android operating system, but will have to share some of its search engine data with competitors, among other remedies, a federal court ruled Tuesday in an antitrust case that found the U.S. tech giant maintained an illegal monopoly in the search engine industry.
The ruling from Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a far cry from the punishment the Justice Department had sought, instead ruling in favor of part of the remedies put forth by both sides.
In August, Google sealed a deal to give U.S. government employees access to its AI and other applications for 47 cents per user, underbidding other AI partners.
The U.S. General Services Administration announced Thursday in a press release it has a contract with Google that will "provide a suite of AI and cloud services that will accelerate the adoption of AI across government" as per the Trump administration's "America's AI Action Plan."