What to know

  • Google’s Gemini AI chatbot provides faster responses, can handle long and complex queries, and allows image upload via Drive and device storage – all for free.
  • The 1.5 Flash upgrade also introduces links to ‘Related Content’ within Gemini’s responses for you to explore a topic more deeply.
  • Gemini is now accessible in more countries and languages. Depending on the regional age requirements, teenagers too can access Gemini.

Thanks to a new 1.5 Flash upgrade, Google’s Gemini AI can now provide smarter responses and do so more quickly than before. The upgrade applies to the unpaid version of Gemini so it would be accessible and ready to test for all. 

Google notes in its blog: “With Gemini 1.5 Flash, you’ll notice across-the-board improvements in quality and latency, with especially noticeable improvements in reasoning and image understanding.” 

The upgrade also brings a bigger context window, or how much text Gemini can process at a time. With 32K tokens available for the free tier, users now have four times the number of tokens compared to Gemini 1.0 Pro.

Image: blog.google

Previously, this was reserved only for Gemini Advanced users. Another Gemini Advanced feature coming to free tier users is the ability to upload files via Google Drive or from your device storage. 

Gemini 1.5 Flash upgrade also introduces ‘Related Content’ to Gemini’s answers. By clicking on the chip at the end of a paragraph, you’ll be able to see not just the sources for its answers but content related to the query/answer as well.

This way, you’ll be able to dig deeper and go down the rabbit hole of your choice. Google hopes it will help tackle hallucinations, something has been a particularly thorny issue with Gemini. 

It’s good to note that ‘related content’ won’t apply to information from the web only. You’ll get it in extensions as well, such as Gmail, so you might see inline links to your relevant emails. 

Google’s also expanding access to the Gemini mobile app for users in more countries. Users in more than 150 countries can get the Gemini app either from the Play Store or by switching to Gemini through Google Assistant. Gemini is also being rolled out in Google Messages to the European Economic Area (EEA), UK and Switzerland. 

Up until now, access to Gemini has been only for adults (18+). But soon teenagers will be able to access Gemini as well. However, teenagers will need to meet the minimum age requirements to manage their own Google Account and access Gemini, which is different across the world. You can can check the Age requirements on Google Accounts (and Gemini) here.