Google put out another version of its Gemini Flash AI model this week, the third in six weeks. Its bigger, more powerful "Pro" model, promised in June, still hasn't appeared.
If you don't build AI products, the horse race between Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta is not your problem. But there are two details in this release that quietly affect anyone whose website or back office uses AI for anything, and plenty do without the owner thinking of it that way. A chatbot on your contact page, a tool that writes product descriptions, something that reads incoming enquiries and sorts them, a scheduling assistant. All of these usually work by sending your text off to a model like this one and paying per word processed.
The first detail is that the advertised price is temporary. Google is charging $0.75 per million words in and $3.75 per million words out, but that rate expires on December 31, 2026, after which it doubles. If a supplier has built you something on this model and quoted running costs based on today's rate, those costs go up at the end of next year unless someone moves you.
The second detail is subtler and more immediately relevant. Google says the new model "works harder", meaning it does more thinking steps before answering. The Decoder reports that works out to roughly 30 percent more output per task. Same price per word, more words. So the sticker price is unchanged and your bill goes up anyway. That is the sort of thing that shows up as a surprise on a monthly invoice.
Underneath both points is the real issue: a supplier shipping a new model every three weeks means the thing your site depends on keeps moving. Behaviour changes. Old versions eventually get retired.
What to do
Probably nothing today. Next time you speak to whoever maintains your site, ask three questions. Does anything here call an AI service and get billed per use? Is there a spending cap on that account? And is it pinned to a specific version of the model, so it doesn't quietly change behaviour when the vendor ships the next one?
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