Google throttles free quotas for Gemini 3 Pro

Google has significantly restricted the free usage limits of its AI model Gemini 3 Pro. As the company announced in an updated support document, users without a paid Google AI subscription will only receive "Basic Access" with daily changing limits. Previously, up to five prompts per day were guaranteed.

The cutback is particularly drastic for the image generator Nano Banana Pro. Instead of the originally promised three images per day, free users can now only create two images daily. Google justifies the measure with "high demand" and points out that the limits can change frequently and are reset daily. The success of Gemini 3 Pro seems to have surprised Google itself. Upon its release, the new model catapulted itself to the top of the most important benchmarks and thus surpassed ChatGPT for the first time.

NotebookLM also affected

Google's NotebookLM service, an AI-powered research tool, is also affected by the capacity bottlenecks. The company has temporarily restricted access to the new "Infographics" and "Slide Decks" functions, which are based on Nano Banana Pro. Free users lost access completely, while additional limits were introduced for paying Pro subscribers. Google has not yet provided any information on when capacities will be sufficient to restore the original free quotas. The announcement regarding NotebookLM merely states that they plan to "bring everything back to normal as quickly as possible".

Nano Banana Pro, the image generator belonging to Gemini 3 Pro, was only recently introduced by Google. Compared to the previous model, it is said to understand context better and can access Google's knowledge base. The improved rendering of text in images and the ability to maintain up to five people consistently across multiple generations were particularly presented as advancements.

(mki)