College students can get Google's AI Pro plan for free now. Here's how

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

ZDNET's key takeaways

• Students ages 18+ get the Google AI Pro plan for free for 12 months. 
• Plan includes access to Deep Research, Veo 3, Jules, and more.
• Part of a larger $1 billion investment in AI education and job training. 

As AI tools continue to develop, they expand beyond the standard question-and-answer loop and offer more meaningful assistance for students. Google, for instance, has tools that can create podcasts for users from their notes, debug code, and create in-depth reports in seconds. Now, students can access all these tools for free. 

On Wednesday, Google said that it is offering its Google AI Pro subscription tier to college students for free. To be eligible, you must be a student 18 or older in the US, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, or Brazil. The plan includes all of the best of Google's AI suite of tools, including expanded access to Gemini 2.5 Pro and NotebookLM, Deep Research, Veo 3, and Jules. 

This release comes at a time when there is a shift in how AI is being adopted by the education system. At the beginning, the tech was met with ample resistance, with school districts even banning it. However, more educators and schools have gotten on board due to the growing promise of the tech in aiding learning. For a glimpse of what these tools can do for you, keep reading below.  

The Google AI Pro tier

The Google AI Pro Tier typically retails for $20 per month and bundles all of Google's different AI offerings, including the best models in Gemini and standalone tools, into one plan. Students, in particular, can benefit from many of these tools as they ensure that the quality of the responses and assistance is as high as possible and can tackle different tasks. 

For example, Gemini 2.5 Pro is the best model for complex tasks such as coding, which could be helpful for students entering disciplines such as computer science or software engineering. Deep Research, also accessible in Gemini, is another powerful feature that goes beyond question-answer interactions by combining in-depth reports from hundreds of sites on the web. This could be useful when researching a topic for a paper or an exam. 

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Students also get higher access to NotebookLM, Google's viral experimental AI notebook that combines LLMs with your notes to further your understanding of a topic by providing summaries, answering questions, and even discussing your content with you. With the broader access, users have five times higher usage limits to some of NotebookLM's greatest features, including Audio Overviews, notebooks, queries, and sources per notebook. I was recently converted to this tool and can not get enough of it. 

Other fun perks include access to Veo 3, Google's insanely realistic AI video generator; higher limited in Whisk, Google's AI image-to-video tool; and Jules, an AI coding agent, which got a positive review from our resident coding and AI expert, David Gewirtz. 

Perhaps the best feature, in my opinion, is that students get Gemini AI assistance infused in the Google suite of applications, which many students rely on for their everyday tasks. Some examples include Gemini coediting in Google Docs, analyzing and visualizing data in Google Sheets, and creating presentations in Google Slides. The extra 2TB of storage is also helpful as it is easy to accumulate lots of digital content. 

Other new AI tools 

Google is also rolling out new tools in Gemini for consumer and Workspace for EDU accounts that are meant to make studying more efficient. For example, Google launched Guided Learning, its response to OpenAI's Study Mode. Instead of giving an answer, it gives you a step-by-step breakdown of the topic, ensuring the user learns the topic. 

Also: Can AI save teachers from a crushing workload? There's new evidence it might

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

The company also said Gemini now produces more visuals in the responses to ensure a more engaging learning experience, including high-quality images, sigarams, and YouTube videos. Lastly, Gemini can now create flashcards and study guides on class materials. 

Free AI training  

Google is also committing over $1 billion to fund more free Google AI Training programs in the next three years, including AI education, job training programs, and other education-related initiates in the US. 

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Lastly, Google is launching the Google AI for Education Accelerator, an initiative that Google said "will offer free AI training, Google Career Certificates, and Google's most advanced AI tools to every college student in America for free." While the goal seems ambitious, the company says that over 100 universities, representing millions of students, have already signed up. 

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