Google May Have Finally Figured Out How To Get Free Users To Pay Up

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

Google One subscriptions have grown from 100 million to 150 million in just 15 months.
The company’s been selling “millions” of subscriptions to its AI Premium tier.
We expect Google One to soon add even more subscription options.

Is there any tech company out there that gives you more, without demanding that you pay a dime, than Google? Sure, the company’s an ad giant, and we’ve all heard the argument that if we’re not the ones paying to use a service, then it’s us who are actually the product (being sold as an audience to advertisers). But if you’re cool with that, then Google’s got an absolute ton to offer for free. But like any profit-driven company, if there’s an opportunity to convert some of those free users to paying subscribers, Google’s absolutely going to want to take advantage of it. Now a new report shines some light on just how successful that effort has been.

Right now, Google is all about the upsell. You can watch YouTube with all its ads, or pay for Premium. But with stuff like Gmail, Drive, and Docs, Google’s premium offerings are all bundled together under the banner of Google One. Ostensibly a way to upgrade your cloud storage, we’ve seen One evolve over the years to include bonuses like dark web monitoring, Magic Editor access, or a VPN — at least, for a time. Most recently, Google’s big carrot for One has been AI Premium, offering early and expanded access to its latest and greatest Gemini functionality.

The rise of AI Premium seems to correspond with a big uptick in Google One subscriptions, at least according to numbers shared with Reuters. Whereas One had only hit 100 million subscribers as of February of last year, following six years of existence, in the year-plus since it’s already ballooned 50% to 150 million subscribers.

We don’t have much more in the way of granular figures there, so we can’t exactly drill down into causation too deeply, but it’s really difficult to see that kind of growth and not attribute it to the AI features that have really been at the forefront of Google One’s value proposition for more than the past year now. Google VP Shimrit Ben-Yair does confirm “millions” of AI Premium subscriptions in particular.

It sure feels like Google is doing all it can to capitalize on this trend, and we’ve already seen signs of the company preparing new Google One AI tiers that would let it offer even more products and price points, maybe converting some of those remaining free users over to subscriptions.

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