Mo Explains
Last updated: 2026-10-14
I do use Gemini. Mostly it's the one inside Gmail, and I'll ask it questions about whatever site I'm on, so it doesn't have to be very smart in the way that I use it. It seems fine for what I need it for. I just haven't pushed it on anything complicated.
So this week Android Authority put up an open thread asking if Gemini is really getting dumber, and I went through it as somebody watching from the side. The complaints are real, and there's a lot of them. When you actually read them, though, it's two different groups of people, and they aren't complaining about the same thing.
The free plan got smaller, and Google said so
If you're on a free account or the $4.99 AI Plus plan, Gemini did get worse, and that's because Google cut what you get.
Google says so on its own support page about model access. The changes started October 9 for personal accounts that don't pay. AI Plus keeps Flash-Lite and Flash and loses Pro. Free accounts just say "Auto" now, which means Google picks the model for you, and with Pro and Flash gone that's mostly going to be Flash-Lite, the smallest one they have. If you want it laid out in a table, TechRepublic has a clean one.
I wrote about what free Gemini loses on October 9 back when that page first changed, and I still feel the same way. You cannot complain with free. If someone's giving you something, you can't really complain about what you get. It's unfortunate, I get it, but AI isn't cheap to run, so anything free with AI behind it is a gift.
Paid users saying Pro feels like Flash is the real question
The ones I'd actually take seriously are from people paying $19.99 a month for AI Pro, because according to Google, that plan didn't lose anything.
One reader in that thread said, "I even get the feeling that there's no difference between the Flash and Pro models now." Another one said they all "got dumber after the high/medium/low update." That update is the effort setting Google added this month, where you pick how hard the model thinks. And a Pro subscriber over on r/GeminiAI says it loses track of the conversation after just two messages.
Now, none of that is proof. Google hasn't said Pro changed, and people's memory of how good a model used to be isn't the most reliable thing. It's the same thing I called out with OpenAI a couple weeks ago, though. What I want from any model release is for it to get smarter and use less at the same time. I feel like if Google is quietly turning Pro down toward Flash to save on compute, that's the wrong direction. And when people say the effort setting doesn't seem to change anything, that only makes me more suspicious.
The people who never chose Gemini
A lot of the anger doesn't have anything to do with how smart it is. It's phone calls and timers.
Google finished pulling Google Assistant off Android phones last month, so people on Android got Gemini as the default whether they asked for it or not. There's a Reddit thread called "Gemini as the Google Assistant is a disaster," and The News wrote it up on October 9. One person in there just says, "I just want it to make a phone call." Other people say it calls the wrong business, or it can't get a timer right.
Those people aren't grading Gemini on how well it reasons. They want to know if the timer went off. I've said this before, I don't think anybody really has brand loyalty in AI. The one thing that keeps people around is trust. When you put a product on somebody's phone before it can do what the old one did, you're spending that trust, and you're spending it fast.
Gemini 4 Argon landed, for some of you
Google's answer to all this came out October 13, and it only goes to the people paying.
Gemini 4 Argon went out to AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, in the Gemini app and in AI Mode in Search. Google says it "answers questions more directly with less hedging," and honestly that reads like somebody at Google has been reading the same complaints I have. According to 9to5Google, Pro and Ultra subscribers now have four models to pick from, Flash-Lite and Flash and Pro and Argon. Free and AI Plus don't get Argon at all.
So far it's split. Some Pro subscribers say they're burning through their limit in a handful of messages. I'd give it a week before deciding anything.
Where I land
So for the way I use it, Gemini's fine. If you're on free, it got smaller, and Google told you it was going to. If you're paying, I honestly don't know yet. The Pro-feels-like-Flash thing is the one I'm watching, and Argon's either going to make it go away or it isn't.
I'll update this once Argon has been in people's hands long enough to tell whether the Pro complaints were a phase or a direction.
Related reading: Free Gemini drops to Flash-Lite on October 9 | How to turn off Gemini on Android, Gmail and Chrome | Is Claude writing getting worse? | New to AI? Start here
