Gemini Pro for students: what Google offers today and how to activate it

Google is no longer giving Gemini Pro away to students: currently, the free offer for university students is one year of Google AI Plus, to be claimed by 31 December 2026. AI Pro remains available to students only at a discounted price. In addition, from 9 October 2026 the AI Plus plan does not include Gemini’s Pro model: those who activate the offer use the Flash and Flash-Lite models, with usage limits double those of the free version.

Many articles and posts in circulation still refer to “a year of free Gemini Pro”, but they relate to an earlier offer that expired in December 2025. In this article you will find what applies now, who can claim it, how to activate it and what happens at the end of the 12 months. If, however, you are looking for an overview of what Gemini is and how it works, we have written a comprehensive guide that may help.

What Google offers university students

According to the Google One help page on student offers, eligible university students can choose from three options:

1. Google AI Plus at no cost for 12 months (the genuinely free offer, the one most students search for as “Gemini Pro for students”).
2. Google AI Pro at a discounted price, renewable for up to 4 consecutive years while studying.
3. A discounted Google AI Pro + YouTube Premium bundle, with the same maximum duration.

According to the Gemini for Students page, the free one-year AI Plus subscription includes:

• Gemini usage limits twice as high as those of the free version;
• 400 GB of cloud storage, shared across Drive, Gmail and Photos;
• access to Gemini Omni;
• image generation and Gemini Live for voice conversations;
• unlimited uploads to study notebooks.

The Google subscriptions page also lists video generation and 200 Google Flow credits for AI Plus. For a student it is a complete plan: anyone using it to summarise lecture notes, prepare for exams or organise notes is unlikely to miss the Pro model.

Gemini Pro or AI Plus: the difference that matters for students

The name “Gemini Pro” causes confusion because it refers to two different things: the Pro model, the most capable in the family, and the Google AI Pro plan, the €21.99-a-month subscription that includes it. This year’s student offer provides neither.

From 9 October 2026, according to Google’s help page on changes to Gemini model access, the available models change as follows:

Sources: Google pages on model changes, usage limits and subscriptions, accessed on 7 October 2026.

In practice, AI Plus is enough for studying, writing and research. The Pro model and the 1 million-token context window make the difference on heavier tasks: theses with many sources to analyse together, complex programming, long datasets. Those who genuinely need it can consider the discounted AI Pro offer; the discount amount is shown on the offer page at the time of sign-up. 

Who can claim the offer

According to the Gemini for Students page and Google One support, there are four requirements:

The offer is open both to new subscribers and to those who have already completed a previous trial, and must be claimed by 31 December 2026. Google’s subscriptions page warns that the promotion “ends soon”: it is worth activating it as soon as possible.

According to Google One support, the following are excluded: members of a Google One family group (unless they leave it), those with a subscription activated through third-party partners, and Pixel Pass or Google Fi users. These exclusions account for most failed activations.

How to activate the student offer, step by step

1. Go to one.google.com/ai-student and sign in with your personal Google account.
2. Choose the offer you want: AI Plus free for 12 months or discounted AI Pro.
3. Complete verification through SheerID, the platform Google uses to confirm student status, by entering your university email address.
4. Add a valid payment method.
5. Confirm the subscription: the plan activates immediately and the first charge is due only at the end of the free period.

If verification fails, there are three things to check: that your university email address is active and receiving mail, that the account is not part of a Family group, and that there is no Google One subscription already activated through a mobile operator or another partner.

What happens after the 12 months

At the end of the free year, unless cancelled, Google AI Plus renews automatically at 4.99 euros per month, as stated in the offer terms on the Gemini for Students page, which also specifies that the subscription can be cancelled at any time. Anyone who does not wish to continue would do well to note the expiry date and cancel from the Google One settings before renewal.

For the discounted AI Pro offer the rules are different: student status must be re-verified through SheerID, usually every 12 months, for a maximum of 4 consecutive years. Once you are no longer eligible, the subscription moves to the plan’s standard price, which for AI Pro is 21.99 euros a month according to Google’s subscriptions page.

Schools, universities and businesses: the personal offer is not enough

The student offer is a personal subscription: it is activated on a private Google account and is subject to the user’s own terms.

Institutions take a different route. Schools and universities using Google Workspace for Education can enable Gemini for Education, available at no cost as a standalone app with Google for Education Fundamentals, according to Google for Education. In this case Gemini is used with the institution’s account and under the institution’s data management rules.

The same applies to companies taking on interns, final-year students or young staff: having people work on company documents through their personal accounts, even free and legitimate ones, means losing control over where that data ends up. If Gemini becomes part of work processes, business accounts and clear rules are essential.