Google AI Pro (Gemini Pro) Purchase

Overview

As a part of the Google Workspace for Education, Williams currently offers Google's Gemini for Education for free to all faculty, staff, and students. However, for advanced uses, OIT can facilitate the purchase of Google AI Pro (formerly called Gemini Pro or Premium) licenses for current faculty and staff.

Comparison of Gemini (currently free for all current Williams faculty, staff, and students) and Google AI Pro.

We will facilitate purchases* of Google AI Pro licenses according to the next purchase date, designated on the 19th of every month. Please allow some time for the license to be applied to your Williams Google account. Once applied, the license will be valid through August 19, 2027. The Gemini AI Pro license cannot be applied to any other Google account.

* The cost will be no more than $228 per year, prorated from the purchase date to our annual renewal date. We’ll confirm the exact price before applying the charge to your funding source.

Requirements

A designated funding source to which we can charge your Google AI Pro license subscription.

In the form below, we ask about your current use and/or interest in genAI platforms specifically and whether you would like to take part in this purchase. For questions or concerns, please reach out to Tattiya Maruco, Director of Academic Technology Services.

Instructions

Submit the Google AI Pro Purchase Interest Form.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cost to join this month versus another month?

Cost is related to the annual renewal date of August 19.

January 19 - $133
February 19 - $114
March 19 - $95
April 19 - $76
May 19 - $57
June 19- $38
July 19 - $19
August 19 - $228
September 19 - $209
October 19 - $190
November 19 - $171
December 19 - $152

Why offer Google's Gemini and not ChatGPT?

Williams College subscribes to Google Workspace for Education, a productivity and communication suite of tools that provide a secure and streamlined environment for faculty, staff, and students. Under this specific license, Google applies additional privacy and security protections over our data and within the system not typically of publicly available genAI platforms, like ChatGPT or Claude.

	Gemini DOES NOT	Gemini DOES
Data access	✖ Access Workspace content that you don't have permission to access	✅ Access relevant Workspace content based on your prompt and that you have permission to access
Data use	✖ Use your prompt, Workspace content, webpage context, or generated responses to train generative AI models without your permission	✅ Use your prompt, relevant Workspace content, and webpage context to generate a response
Data protection	✖ Share your prompt or the generated response with other users or organizations	✅ Automatically apply your existing data protection controls when you insert the generated response into your email or document

How does Google's Gemini compare to other available genAI platforms?

Gemini is considered a frontier model (alongside ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, Grok, and others) and performs better than, or on par with, peers on benchmarks across multiple areas (reasoning, scientific knowledge, coding, visual reasoning, multilingual performance). Beyond bare model capability, Gemini AI Pro provides seamless, substantial “value-add” integration within the entire Google Workspace ecosystem, including standard tools (Drive, Gmail, Calendar, etc.), as well as additional tools and expanded features (Guided Learning, Vids, NotebookLM, Canvas [app-building], Veo 3, Deep Research, etc.).

Other genAI platforms offer some similar features, but typically need additional steps to integrate with your existing tools, requiring careful consideration for data privacy handling and security.

Additionally, Google Workspace for Education offers “enterprise grade protections” that are FERPA compliant. For example, the data and chats are not used for training Google’s LLMs.

I already pay for access to Google AI Pro (formerly called Gemini Pro or Premium) with a personal Google account. Is my personal Google account Gemini license the same as this license?

The features and the interface would look the same as Gemini Pro/Premium on your personal Google account, but this purchase would enable the integration of Google AI Pro into your Williams Workspace for Education account, i.e., it will be connected to your @williams.edu account.

How can I tell if I have Google AI Pro vs the free Gemini features included with our Google Workspace for Education license?

The major visible differences to your Google Workspace user experience as Google AI Pro license holder are:

The appearance of “Pro” next to your profile picture in https://gemini.google.com/. Please see the screenshot below.

The appearance of a four-pointed star icon next to your profile picture in Google Workspace apps: Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Chat, Meet, Drive and Vids. Please see the screenshot below.

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