Google AI Pro is a mobile deal I think is hard to beat — here's why

by · Android Police

The AI world has quietly agreed that premium AI should be $20 a month.

ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all charge about the same for access to their best models. But the value you get from each isn’t the same.

Spending $20 on OpenAI or Anthropic gets you a mind in a box. Google, however, is offering a full ecosystem, and that’s what makes their AI Pro deal so hard to beat.

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Breaking down the true value of the AI Pro subscription

Subscribing to ChatGPT Plus means you’re paying for priority access. You get new models and extras for video and image generation.

Other chatbots are more or less similar. You’re essentially paying a consultant, even if you don’t call on them, and sometimes there’s no return on that payment.

Now, let’s take a look at the Google AI Pro plan. It costs the same. However, the makeup of that $20 is completely different because cloud storage is bundled in.

In this day and age, cloud storage is non-negotiable. You simply need it if you have a smartphone.

Photos and videos keep getting bigger. 4K video at 60 frames per second gobbles up gigabytes like it’s nothing. Add in app data, backups, PDFs, and email archives, and it all piles up fast.

Most people eventually reach the 15GB free limit and have no choice but to pay.

Now, Google Drive’s 2 TB plan costs around $10 a month, which makes up about half of the AI Pro price. That means the extra cost to access Gemini comes down to just $10 a month.

For anyone already paying separately for cloud storage and AI, this bundle is unbeatable value. I used to be a ChatGPT subscriber, but the offer was too good not to switch.

If you’re a student, keep an eye out for the free one-year Gemini offer. It’s an even better deal.

Extra perks included with Google AI Pro you shouldn’t miss

When you think it can’t get any better, Google surprises you with more. The Google AI Pro plan includes NotebookLM Plus at no extra cost.

If you haven’t tried NotebookLM yet, you’re missing out on one of this year’s viral hits. It’s a research assistant that lets you upload PDFs and audio files and chat with them to get grounded answers.

Additionally, Google has rebranded its Nest Aware service as Google Home Premium. If you own a Nest Cam, Doorbell, or Hub, you’re likely already paying for this service to access video history and face detection.

With the AI Pro subscription, the Google Home Premium Standard plan is included for free, adding even more value to the package.

Gemini’s Android experience beats standalone AI apps

Economic reasons aside, it’s the user experience where Google AI Pro really stands, especially if you use Android.

We’re moving past the days when AI was something you had to visit on a website. Now, AI is becoming a layer built right into the operating system.

Google is in a unique spot to lead this shift since it basically owns Android.

ChatGPT, Claude, and others are apps that live in their own bubbles. You open them, get what you need, then close them.

They don’t remember what you were doing before, and they can’t easily interact with other apps without extra steps.

With Gemini’s integration, there’s no need to switch contexts or copy-paste. You stay in your flow, and the AI comes to you.

Here are just a few of the many ways you can use it.

Screen Awareness

You are watching a technical YouTube video about fixing a coffee machine and get stuck on a specific part.

  • Gemini: You hold the power button to trigger the overlay and ask, “What tool is he holding?” Gemini analyzes the paused video frame directly and identifies the tool. You never leave the video.
  • Other AI: You must take a screenshot of the video. You exit YouTube. You open ChatGPT. You upload the screenshot and ask the question. You switch back to YouTube to resume.

System Control

You are cooking, and your hands are messy, but you need to manage your phone settings.

  • Gemini: You say, “Turn on the flashlight and set a timer for ten minutes.” Gemini interacts directly with the Android API to toggle the hardware flashlight and start a countdown in the native Clock app.
  • Other AI: They cannot access device settings or hardware control. You must clean your hands and do it manually.

Gemini’s Workspace experience also beats standalone AI apps

The standard workflow for using Generative AI in 2025 is still surprisingly unproductive for many:

  1. Open ChatGPT or Claude in a browser tab.
  2. Write a prompt.
  3. Wait for the output.
  4. Copy the text.
  5. Open Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
  6. Paste the text.
  7. Spend 10 minutes fixing the formatting (bold headers, bullet points, weird gray backgrounds).

This tab-switching kills your focus. But, if you’re already invested in Google’s free Workspace suite, Google AI Pro brings the model right inside the apps you use every day.

It shows up as a sidebar or a floating button in Docs, Gmail, Slides, and Sheets. Again, let’s look at some examples.

Gemini in Google Drive

The 2TB of storage is only part of the value. If you’re anything like me, your Google Drive is filled with unnamed PDFs, random spreadsheets, and forgotten notes.

Traditional search only works if you remember file names. Gemini in Drive lets you search by intent instead.

Ask, “Find the PDF from last March about the marketing budget and summarize the expenses.” Gemini scans your private files, finds the document, reads it, and gives you an answer.

Gemini in Gmail

With Summarization, you can skip reading long email threads and get a concise three-point summary covering the status and next steps.

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The Smart Reply feature helps you draft emails on the spot. Give it a prompt, and it’ll compose the message right in your draft window.

Gemini Google Docs, Sheets, Slides

In Docs, Gemini is your co-author. You can highlight a paragraph and say, “Make this more professional” or “Shorten this.” It can even generate a base draft on the spot.

Plus, since it’s fully integrated, it respects your formatting.

In Sheets, Gemini can write formulas for you. And in Slides, it creates images from text descriptions and drafts from your prompts.

Diving deeper is outside the scope, but there’s much more to explore with each tool.

How reliable is Google’s AI in everyday use?

All the value in the world doesn’t count if the AI is incompetent. Many enthusiasts talk about a quality gap between GPT and Gemini. And it’s true.

Back in the early Bard vs. GPT-3.5 days, Google’s model struggled with hallucinations, skipped basic questions, and lagged in reasoning. But recently, that gap has mostly evened out for everyday use.

If you’re a specialist, like a Python architect who is looking for the highest reasoning power in edge-case debugging and coding, Claude, Copilot, or Cursor are the better fit.

But for everybody else, Gemini is more than capable.

When you factor in integration, the cost of using a slightly worse model that lives in your document often ends up lower than using a better model that requires a copy-and-paste workflow.