It's insane how Google has dropped the ball almost completely with AI.
I literally don't care about their models anymore because I can't even try them without paying for them?
I already pay for the plus plan but whatever their latest model was, is locked for me. Or otherwise it's just not accessible for me.
If I try to add balance to my Google payment account, it shows me errors and is asking me to verify my identity through government documents.
---
Not to mention the extremely confusing terminology. "Flash", "Experimental". Why are most of your models either of those two? I don't get the confidence that your models are any good because of such names. Give me a normal reliable model!
Even if Google releases AGI tier models in the future, I'll always look for other models because Google clearly thinks their models are too good for any of us.
This is a new video model. It is not a replacement for Gemini 4, it is doing something altogether different.
It has been available, since yesterday, within Google Flow. I know, because I used it yesterday. Creatives normally are using Flow or similar third party tools, not APIs or AI Studio. The claim here is that there is more character consistency, which is helpful if true. But that's not something I can see from a little work. Despite the "More Affordable" claim, it costs more, and the outputs doesn't, from my limited experience so far, seem to be significantly better. So I could only, personally, justify pulling this up when character consistency is punching me in the face. Which, to be fair, is a lot of the time, both in my experience, and the experience of other AI film makers I talk to.
This isn't for (most) coders, it hardly matters if it shows up on Flow a little earlier that Google Vids, and, perhaps, it is a little silly to act like it is a nightmare that a rollout occurs over a few days, especially the rollout prioritizes the paying creatives on the tool that are most likely to use.
Huh, the latest model just one-shot through my private cultural sensitivity test. In the past they got stuck into the nudity filters and you really had to assure the models that no, this is normal in Finland.
The latest Veo models one-shot the male models, but needed extra coaxing for them to allow women to appear in the videos.
Of course the output is like we'd sensor these kinds of videos into a news broadcast, people have towels on and wear bathing suits.
The rollout is so confusing. Going straight to the Gemini app and asking when I can use this model gets me vague and contradicting answers. Ultimately it sounds like the Vids rollout will take 1-3 days, and you can go to vids.new on desktop to see if you’ve won the lottery and have it available now, apparently on any free Google account. Business accounts can use it too. Meanwhile the Gemini app is getting it on paid plans, but with different video length limits and no clear rollout timeline. If you pay for the API, it’s available now apparently.
I’m still afraid to use Google models because my gmail (which my life kinda depends on) is connected to it and I’m afraid of getting blocked or sth because of some weird prompt.
I desperately wish Google would focus on improving the Gemini capabilities that are built-in to their office suite (docs, slides, etc.). The current built-in Gemini is terrible, and if I could use e.g. Claude natively with those products my workday would be an order of magnitude more productive.
I'm shocked that they don't seem to be investing in agentic capabilities there at all.
Completely random, but I was inspecting the source code for their Omni 1.2 Flash web page, and there are insane amount of newlines. There are seven newlines between the first line and the DOCTYPE. There are huge amount of newlines between each section. What did they use to generate this website?
> Today, we’re rolling out Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, and making it generally available across the Gemini API and Gemini for business. Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash introduces native 15-second video creation, multi-turn conversational editing capabilities, and enhanced reference following. We have dropped the price 30% from Gemini Omni 1.1 making it available at $0.07 per second for 720p video.
Still can't handle the prompts I throw at it, though the 15 seconds gives more breathing room. Not being able to use first and last frames for the longer videos doesn't render it useless, but it gets pretty close (the model just cannot reproduce unusual or idiosyncratic character designs without first and last frames; fat, muscular, ugly, and non-human characters regress to tv commercial blandness).
I just don't know how video is going to make it, long-term. You have to go through so many iterations to get something with even a semblance of what you were going for. I've been making AI videos since early 2024, and while image quality and coherence has gotten better, the ability of the models to actually follow your directions precisely hasn't. I would rather have to wait 5-10 minutes for a clip that actually does what I tell it to than get something useless in 30 seconds.
What's this name and versioning now, NOBODY understands Google's Ai products, including subscribers to them.
Why their models go from 3 to 4 but then whatever this is starts at 1 I honestly don't care anymore
My friend on Google ai plus is still stuck on gemini 3.6 flash and now they're taking away 3.1 pro from them too even though it's long obsolete, like zero regard for user interactions here
It's amazing to me how poor adoption has been for video models, at least in my corner of the internet. I see considerably more Code to Video content from libraries like HyperFrames than any native AI video. It seems that users are much more open to AI coded "Explained style" videos than anything else.
Okay, I just wanted to vent: I'm on the Pro plan and I've not been able to use Argon for the past 4 days - every time I send a prompt I get downgraded to a Flash model.
Not going to even read this post. While I have been really bullish on Google I am now tired of them constantly baiting us with vaporware announcements unfortunately.
Why cant I add a MCP server to any of the Google AI products unless I subscribe to https://business.gemini.google/ . This is like selling a laptop with out a USB port.
Hot take, Google should focus on their open weight models. I use Qwen 3.8 and it’s been amazing. I would pay for Max but there’s no provider or server here in the states. If they had an amazing Gemma 5, I would seriously consider trying their closed source models. Model comfort and familiarity is a real thing.
Maybe I’m using antigravity wrong, so I’d love to be corrected here:
* For scientific computing it constantly cuts corners and writes awful buggy code. Bugs that will flip signs, or clamp values. Then when the model (or harness..?) discovers it, rather than fixing the underlying hacks it just adds more code with ifs, cases, and deceptive tests.
* using argon on high by itself is fast enough but seems dumb. /teamwork will catch a dozen errors from High’s laziness and sloppy tendencies
* /boost and /teamwork are ridiculously slow. Much slower than Codex Ultra. And it’s not clear when to use it.
I basically lost all trust in Argon output after running verification through “/teamwork Argon High” or “Sol 6.1 Ultra”.
it’s a shame that Google/Gemini decided to restrict and fuck other adventurous yet extremely gracious paying customers; who were excited at the prospect of not being locked in to two obnoxious companies.
oh well, I guess we’ll just have to take that enthusiasm and roll it over to all the open weights on providers like fireworks.ai. or others.
i’m so happy I got in early and paid for $200 a month for shit ass Opus 4.6 and sonnet 4.6 and being locked into the absolutely limited Gemini 3.8 flash.
Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash
(blog.google)257 points by thisisauserid 7 hours ago | 202 comments
Comments
I literally don't care about their models anymore because I can't even try them without paying for them?
I already pay for the plus plan but whatever their latest model was, is locked for me. Or otherwise it's just not accessible for me.
If I try to add balance to my Google payment account, it shows me errors and is asking me to verify my identity through government documents.
---
Not to mention the extremely confusing terminology. "Flash", "Experimental". Why are most of your models either of those two? I don't get the confidence that your models are any good because of such names. Give me a normal reliable model!
Even if Google releases AGI tier models in the future, I'll always look for other models because Google clearly thinks their models are too good for any of us.
It has been available, since yesterday, within Google Flow. I know, because I used it yesterday. Creatives normally are using Flow or similar third party tools, not APIs or AI Studio. The claim here is that there is more character consistency, which is helpful if true. But that's not something I can see from a little work. Despite the "More Affordable" claim, it costs more, and the outputs doesn't, from my limited experience so far, seem to be significantly better. So I could only, personally, justify pulling this up when character consistency is punching me in the face. Which, to be fair, is a lot of the time, both in my experience, and the experience of other AI film makers I talk to.
This isn't for (most) coders, it hardly matters if it shows up on Flow a little earlier that Google Vids, and, perhaps, it is a little silly to act like it is a nightmare that a rollout occurs over a few days, especially the rollout prioritizes the paying creatives on the tool that are most likely to use.
Of course the output is like we'd sensor these kinds of videos into a news broadcast, people have towels on and wear bathing suits.
Why is this so difficult to figure out?
I'm shocked that they don't seem to be investing in agentic capabilities there at all.
> https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/med...
Text from the first paragraph on the page says
> Today, we’re rolling out Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, and making it generally available across the Gemini API and Gemini for business. Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash introduces native 15-second video creation, multi-turn conversational editing capabilities, and enhanced reference following. We have dropped the price 30% from Gemini Omni 1.1 making it available at $0.07 per second for 720p video.
Focus on this part
> We have dropped the price 30%
The text to speech audio says
> We have dropped the price 3%
Google's main source of revenue is advertising (yes, still).
This is one of paths that serve that.
Still confused? Look at what Meta is doing with end-to-end ad creation.
I'm not saying Omni makes good ads. It's all part of the toolbox.
I just don't know how video is going to make it, long-term. You have to go through so many iterations to get something with even a semblance of what you were going for. I've been making AI videos since early 2024, and while image quality and coherence has gotten better, the ability of the models to actually follow your directions precisely hasn't. I would rather have to wait 5-10 minutes for a clip that actually does what I tell it to than get something useless in 30 seconds.
Why their models go from 3 to 4 but then whatever this is starts at 1 I honestly don't care anymore
My friend on Google ai plus is still stuck on gemini 3.6 flash and now they're taking away 3.1 pro from them too even though it's long obsolete, like zero regard for user interactions here
Makes me consider cancelling the plan entirely.
What a great way to start.
They move a lot like 3d models.
* For scientific computing it constantly cuts corners and writes awful buggy code. Bugs that will flip signs, or clamp values. Then when the model (or harness..?) discovers it, rather than fixing the underlying hacks it just adds more code with ifs, cases, and deceptive tests.
* using argon on high by itself is fast enough but seems dumb. /teamwork will catch a dozen errors from High’s laziness and sloppy tendencies
* /boost and /teamwork are ridiculously slow. Much slower than Codex Ultra. And it’s not clear when to use it.
I basically lost all trust in Argon output after running verification through “/teamwork Argon High” or “Sol 6.1 Ultra”.
So, to badly impersonate N-Gate, "Business Model: Uber for Getty Images"
oh well, I guess we’ll just have to take that enthusiasm and roll it over to all the open weights on providers like fireworks.ai. or others.
i’m so happy I got in early and paid for $200 a month for shit ass Opus 4.6 and sonnet 4.6 and being locked into the absolutely limited Gemini 3.8 flash.