Google I/O 2026: Gemini 3.5 Flash launches and AI Ultra subscription cut to $100/month

Summary

At I/O 2026, Google announced Gemini 3.5 Flash and re-priced its consumer AI Ultra tier from $250 to $100/month, with 5× higher Gemini app usage limits than the $20 AI Pro tier, 20 TB of cloud storage, YouTube Premium bundled, and beta access to Gemini Spark (their agentic personal AI). Simon Willison's coverage notes Gemini 3.5 Flash is more expensive than its predecessor but Google plans to "use it for everything" — Google is committing to a Flash-tier-as-default posture across consumer and en