At Google I/O 2026, Google quietly announced a fundamental change in the way Gemini usage limits work, and depending on what tasks are run, some users will feel it right away.
With the new plan, asking Gemini to summarize a news article costs almost nothing. The cost of asking it to produce a video or run an in-depth research session is significantly higher, and both now draw from the same refresh pool.
How does Gemini’s new system work?
Under the old model, each signal counted equally towards the daily range. A text question is equivalent to a prompt. A video generation request is equivalent to a prompt.
The new system makes up that difference. Limits are now refreshed every five hours instead of daily, but the speed at which the quota is exhausted depends entirely on what is being asked.
Google confirmed the functions that depend most on usage limits: image, video, and music creation; in-depth research; Pro Model; and extended thinking features including Deep Think.
“Gemini will move to a calculation-based usage limit that will refresh every 5 hours until you reach your weekly limit,” Google said. “Your usage calculations will take into account the complexity of your signal, the features you use, and the length of your chat.”
Typical users running basic text queries, summarizing documents, drafting emails, asking factual questions will notice almost no meaningful change. The computation cost of these interactions is so low that standard limits will absorb normal daily use without disruption.
Google confirmed that usage limits for users under 18 will remain unchanged under the new system.
Users without a payment plan operate under the standard limit. AI Plus customers enjoy double the limits as standard. AI Pro users receive four times the standard. At the top tier, AI Ultra subscribers receive five or twenty times the AI ​​Pro allocation, depending on their specific subscription.
