What are the advantages to using Gemini Pro?

Advantages: capable front end backed by world class intelligence and you get some nano banana.

Disadvantages:Tied to single backend model that is trained on Google sponsors and may manipulate some answers to favor advertisers. This will get much worse in the future with pro ad plans combined with AEO industry. No answer to codex or Claude code yet.

Solution: If you’re just chatbotting, chat.qwen.ai is impossible to beat. It isn’t super fast but will research every question thoroughly before answering and it’s free. Gemini barely looks up anything. Even with “google it” it just uses its poisoned index.

If you’re using multi-step agentic stuff, you’re better off hosting, downloading, or subscribing to a third-party agentic front end and putting a few bucks here and there into openrouter.

There are use cases that favor single company subscriptions but they’re either niche, have regulatory constraints, or involve extremely heavy usage.

The biggest thing to me is the app integration if you are already in the google sphere. The Gemini button in Chrome is great when you want to know a little bit more about what you are already looking at. Here's a list of the integrations-

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Core Google Apps & Services Integration
AI on Google Search can connect to and retrieve data from the following:
Gmail: Summarize emails, search for information, and draft responses.
Google Calendar: Create, update, and find events.
Google Drive & Docs: Analyze, summarize, and search through documents, PDFs, and files.
Google Photos: Search for images based on descriptions.
YouTube & YouTube Music: Search for videos, summarize video content, and play music.
Google Maps: Find locations, get directions, and check traffic.
Google Tasks & Keep: Manage notes, lists, and tasks.
Google Flights & Hotels: Search for travel options.
OpenStax: Pull information from academic textbooks.
Phone & Messages: Make calls and send messages hands-free.

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I get a year of pro for free since I bought a Pixel so I was thinking of trying it out. I think SFP uses it a lot.

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Not the AI tool I really use with my GWS account.

With GWS you get Gemini Pro and all sorts of other goodies, FWIW. I was already using GWS prior to the AI era. These are just lagniappe for me.