Google and OpenAI are slicing again free utilization for Gemini 3 Professional and Sora 2 — listed below are the brand new limits

Unhealthy information for these having fun with client AI instruments, however not sufficient to pay for them. In the previous couple of days, each OpenAI and Google have taken steps to cut back free entry to their generative AI platforms, maybe indicating that the ‘free lunch’ interval of AI entry is starting to wind down — or a minimum of develop into far much less interesting.

Non-paying Sora 2 clients at the moment are restricted to 6 generations a day, down from 30 at launch.

Firstly, 9to5Google noticed a change of wording on Google’s own support page for Gemini 3 Professional. When it arrived final week to nice fanfare, free customers have been promised “as much as 5 prompts / day”, matching the boundaries out there on Gemini 2.5 Professional. Free customers have been additionally in a position to make use of Nano Banana Professional (the mannequin’s picture era component) to create “as much as 3 photographs / day”.

“Thinking with Gemini 3 Pro” no longer has a figure attached. Instead the wording has changed to something far more vague: “Basic access — daily limits may change frequently”. Nano Banana Pro was down to “2 images / day”, though at the time of writing it’s back up to three, with a note saying it’s in high demand and that “limits may change frequently”.

Sora 2 app. Non-paying clients at the moment are restricted to 6 generations a day, down from 30 at launch.

On this occasion, we’ve got a transparent clarification as to why the change is being made, due to a put up on X from Invoice Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI: “Our gpus are melting, and we wish to let as many individuals entry sora as potential!”.

we’re setting utilization limits free of charge customers to six gens/day. chatgpt plus and professional customers have unchanged limits, and all people should purchase extra gens as wanted. our gpus are melting, and we wish to let as many individuals entry sora as potential!November 28, 2025

In different phrases, Sora 2 is a sufferer of its personal success, with the huge compute necessities wanted by AI video era inflicting issues for Open AI’s servers.

In each circumstances, it appears Google and Open AI have determined the time has come to try to push free customers into turning into totally paying clients.

Time to pay?

Google is pretty clear in the footnote about usage limits that it will prioritize paid accounts over free ones. “If capacity changes, limits for users without a Pro or Ultra plan may be limited before users with a plan,” it reads, adding that such limits help “maintain a high standard of quality”.

To be clear, there have always been reasons to pay for AI tools if you find them useful. As the chart below shows, it’s not just about getting more prompts. For example, the context window — the amount of data Gemini can digest from an uploaded file — jumps from 32,000 to one million, allowing for far more thorough responses.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Gemini AI usage caps
Row 0 – Cell 0	Gemini without a Google AI plan	Gemini with Google AI Pro	Gemini with Google AI Ultra
Price per month	Free	$19.99 per month	$249.99 per month
Thinking with 3 Pro	Basic access – daily limits may change frequently	Up to 100 prompts / day	Up to 500 prompts / day
Fast with 2.5 Flash	General access	General access	General access
Context size	32,000	1 million	1 million
Agent	–	–	Up to: 200 Agent requests per day 3 Agent tasks running at the same time
Audio Overviews	Up to 20 audio overviews / day	Up to 20 audio overviews / day	Up to 20 audio overviews / day
Deep Research	Up to 5 reports / month using the Fast model	Up to 20 reports / day using Thinking with 3 Pro	Up to 200 reports / day using Thinking with 3 Pro
Deep Think	–	–	Up to 10 prompts / day with a 192 thousand token context window
Image generation & editing with Nano Banana	Up to 100 images / day	Up to 1,000 images / day	Up to 1,000 images / day
Image generation & editing with Nano Banana Pro	3 images/ day	Up to 100 images / day	Up to 1000 images / day
Dynamic view	Up to 25 prompts / day	Up to 250 prompts / day	Up to 250 prompts / day
Scheduled actions	–	Up to 10 active actions at a time	Up to 10 active actions at a time
Video generation	–	Up to 3 videos / day using Veo 3.1 Fast (preview)	Up to 5 videos / day using Veo 3.1 (preview)
Slice generation	Up to 20 presentations / day	–	–
Early access to features	–	Priority access to some new features	Priority access to some new features

Nonetheless, those who have gotten by on free models up until now will not like the direction of travel. Upselling a paid product with a limited free version is a tactic as old as the hills, but reducing the cost-free version’s usefulness is a gamble. Yes, it may drive more people to paid accounts out of frustration, but it’s equally plausible they’ll just find themselves using the product less.