Google slashes AI Plus price to $4.99, doubles storage to 400GB

Google announced it is cutting the monthly price of Google AI Plus from $7.99 to $4.99, while doubling the included storage from 200GB to 400GB. Vikas Kansal, product lead for Gemini AI subscriptions, confirmed the storage updates will roll out over the next several days. The subscription, originally launched in January as the most affordable paid AI tier in the U.S., includes features like video generation via Omni Flash, the creative studio Google Flow, and NotebookLM. The price cut reflects a broader shift toward commoditization of AI infrastructure. Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien notes that Google’s vertical integration, distribution, and ability to bundle give it structural advantages that will erode margins for pure-play AI providers. He draws parallels to the web era, where infrastructure companies like Cisco and Akamai eventually became less valuable.

This competition has been building for almost a year, especially in India, where OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go at ~$4.60/month in August 2023, and Google followed with a sub-$5 AI Plus plan in December. Now the same logic has crossed to the U.S. market. Anthropic has not yet introduced a budget tier or localized pricing for India, which may become harder to avoid as rivals continue cutting prices. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidentially to go public, and their ability to command premium valuations may soon be tested by this price competition.