Gemini’s Free Tier Shrinks Oct. 9: What You Keep and What Costs Extra
Free Gemini users drop to Flash-Lite only, CA$6.99 AI Plus loses Pro, and CA$26.99 AI Pro gains Deep Think. Here's how to…
Lauren Smith
Columnist, Consumer Tech
Lauren Smith covers consumer apps and services for prompt/power: streaming, subscriptions, e-commerce and everyday tech worth your money. She keeps a running tally of every free trial that quietly turned into a subscription.
7 stories
Dots, Muse, Spark or Grok Bot: Which Always-On AI Agent Gets Your Keys
Five agents now work while you sleep. We compared what each costs, where it runs, what it can do without asking, and…
Amazon’s AI Can Buy Your Big Deal Days Haul. Canadians Get Half the Kit
Prime Big Deal Days runs Oct. 6–7 in 22 countries. Amazon's Auto-Buy assistant is U.S.-only, but Canadians do get price history, the…
Muse Beat ChatGPT to 5 Million Downloads. Meta Owns the Billboards.
Sensor Tower says Meta's AI agent got to 5 million U.S. downloads in 22 days and took up to half of Meta's…
The AI Subscriptions Actually Worth Paying For in Late 2026 (and the Ones to Skip)
One good $20 chatbot covers most of what most people need. Where paying more actually earns its keep, and where you're buying…
DoorDash Wants You to Stop Opening the App
DoorDash's new AI agent takes orders by text in Apple Messages, and it's piloting drones. The friction it removes is also the…
Muse Hit #1. Then Amazon Slammed the Door and a Zero-Day Walked In.
Meta's shopping agent hit #1 in a week. Then Amazon locked it out and a researcher turned it into a Mac backdoor.…