Google announced several key upgrades for Gemini in the past few days, making its AI chatbot even more capable than ever. The Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental reasoning AI is now available to upgrade Deep Research reports. The reasoning AI also comes with a 1 million token context window on the Gemini Advanced plan.
The 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental model also brings Personalization features to Gemini. The AI can look at your Google Search history if you allow it to. In the future, Gemini will also have access to other Google apps, including Calendar, Notes, Tasks, and Photos.
The latter is somewhat exciting, as the AI will be able to recreate itineraries based on your photos or surface information from the pictures on your device.
Speaking of photos, Google also quietly upgraded AI’s image generation capabilities, and it’s not all great news. Gemini can now remove watermarks from photos, essentially opening the doors to stealing copyrighted content.
Gemini also got Canvas support earlier this week. The feature improves how you collaborate with AI on document and code generation, matching a feature ChatGPT has had for a few months. More exciting is the Audio Overview feature that was previously exclusive to NotebookLM and is now available in the Gemini app.
Many of these new features are available in the free Gemini version, and all of them are available on Gemini Advanced. The point here is that Gemini has received a few massive upgrades. All you need is a Google account to start using it.
But what if you want to chat with the AI without logging in? It turns out that Gemini works without a Google account, matching a feature that’s been available on ChatGPT for a while now.
You only need to visit the web version of Gemini in incognito mode on the web to access the AI without an account, 9to5Google reports.
Doing so previously would have taken you to a landing page to log in. Now, you’ll be sent directly to the Gemini app, where you can start having a conversation with the chatbot without ever logging in. That makes it a lot easier to chat with the AI for those times when you want more privacy or want to prevent a particular chat from being associated with your account.
As with ChatGPT, there are drawbacks to using ChatGPT this way. You’ll be limited to a single model, Gemini 2.0 Flash. You’ll see other options in the model picker, including 2.0 Flash Experimental (the reasoning AI), Deep Research, and Personalization, but those require signing into your Google account.
Also, file upload isn’t available if you use Gemini without a Google account.
As expected, this chat with the AI will disappear as soon as you close the incognito window. That’s the whole purpose of using Gemini without an account.
Finally, using Gemini without an account only works on the web. The Android app still requires you to sign in. Maybe Google should devise an incognito mode for the web, too, similar to the Google Maps incognito mode.
Also, Google should make Gemini available without an account on the regular web browsing experience. You don’t have to go incognito to use ChatGPT without an account; there’s no reason to do it with Gemini.
The post Gemini AI is available without a Google account, but there’s a catch appeared first on BGR.
