By Abner Li
Publication Date: 2026-10-10 01:24:00
As announced last week, Google is rolling out a big change to the Gemini app experience for users on the free plan. Additionally, everyone is getting access to thinking or “effort” levels.
Free users “without a plan” can no longer manually switch models. Officially, their only option in the picker is “Auto” with “Gemini 3 models.” Last week, Google’s support documentation referred to it as (3.5) Flash-Lite.
Google says: “Gemini will use auto model selection to send each prompt to the Gemini model that suits it best. Most prompts will go to Flash-Lite, our fastest model. Prompts that need deeper reasoning may go to Flash or Pro.”
Meanwhile:
If smart model selection is turned off, chats for users without an AI plan will use Flash-Lite for all responses.
Google is also rolling out new “effort levels” that replace the previous “Extended” option. These three…
