Google has rebranded its Bard chatbot as Gemini, and is launching a Gemini mobile app along with a subscription offering for Gemini Advanced that will be included as part of the new $19.95 monthly Google One AI Premium plan. As with Bard, Google will continue to make a free version of the Gemini chatbot available. Gemini Advanced is powered by Gemini Ultra, the most sophisticated of the three Gemini AI models Google unveiled in December. “Gemini Advanced not only allows you to have longer, more detailed conversations, it also better understands the context from your previous prompts,” Google explains.

Google is introducing One AI Premium as a two-month trial at no cost. In addition to accessing Google’s top tier AI, the premium offering provides “all the benefits of the existing Google One Premium plan, such as 2TB of storage,” Google says in an announcement.

Additionally, consumers who subscribe to AI Premium will soon be able to use Gemini for Workspace, integrating Gemini Advanced into Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets and more — capabilities previously marketed as Duet AI. Enterprise customers who subscribe to Google Cloud will also see their Duet AI renamed Gemini.

In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says Gemini Advanced is better at things like advanced coding and creative brainstorming. “It can be a personal tutor, tailored to your learning style. Or it can be a creative partner, helping you plan a content strategy or build a business plan,” he writes. Pichai says additional Gemini capabilities will soon be announced for developers and Google Cloud customers.

Out of the box, Gemini Advanced is available today in more than 150 countries and territories in English, with plans to add more languages over time. As new features are added, AI Premium subscribers will have exclusive access to things like expanded multimodal functionality, more interactive coding capabilities and deeper data analysis.

Google VP Sissie Hsiao tells CNBC the Gemini changes are the company’s “first step to ‘building a true AI assistant.’”

The Wall Street Journal says One AI is priced about the same as comparable offerings from Microsoft and OpenAI,” but points out that “tech giants are still figuring out how to turn recent advances in AI into steady profits” — a challenge, considering “generative AI, the technology behind chatbots, is particularly costly to develop and deliver to large volumes of users.”

Startups Character and Perplexity also offer paid subscriptions for premium chatbots, and in December Elon Musk’s X social platform rolled out a $16 per month chatbot called Grok, positioned as cheekier and less filtered than competing services.