Yes, you can get 12 months of Gemini Advanced with older Chromebook Plus models

As of last week, I’ve been struggling with one particular part of Google’s new Chromebook Plus and ChromeOS announcements: free Google One AI Premium (which includes Gemini Advanced) to users who purchase a new Chromebook Plus model.

With a presentation that really pushed the idea that AI shouldn’t be behind an expensive paywall, I was very excited Google is offering Gemini Advanced to Chromebook Plus users completely free for 12 months. It solidified and reinforced what they were doing on stage and was one of the things I couldn’t wait to tell people about.

The fine print always gets you

But after the presentation and last week, I asked. What about Chromebook Plus models purchased a month ago? A week ago? 3 months ago? What about all those devices that aren’t labeled Chromebook Plus but have all the Chromebook Plus upgrades? How does this free offer scale in a way that doesn’t drive away a lot of new users just because they bought a Chromebook Plus model a few weeks or months ago?

And the initial answers to these questions weren’t great, and they came in the form of a new Chromebook benefit that is prominently displayed on the Chromebook benefits page right now. When you dig in a bit, you’re greeted with some rather disgusting language, and my initial excitement for this new feature literally turned to horror when I read it. How on earth were we supposed to explain this to all the people we’ve been encouraging to buy Chromebook Plus models for the past few months?

We tested and the offer also works for older devices

So, in light of that, I wanted to test it out before I get all worked up about it. I grabbed a few off-brand Chromebook Plus models we have in the office and used a few non-work email accounts to cash in on the offer. And it worked on 3 devices via 3 email addresses for me!

I then messaged Joe and had him try out the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook we hit a roadblock. I also had my friend over at the office to try it out on his Chromebook Plus model that he bought a few months ago. Again it was disabled and the benefits page simply said – after checking – that the deal had expired. So I thought maybe it was a fluke that the few I had success with worked at all.

But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. So, with my friend’s approval, we ran a Powerwash on his device, went through the new OOBE setup we talked about yesterday, and this time the perk worked! An update was made during setup and although I think was already running ChromeOS 125, his device may not have been.

Either way, updating to 125 and Powerwash did the trick so I instructed Joe to do the same. And it worked. And to complete the theory, I went to our private Chrome Unboxed Plus Discord community (more on that at the bottom of this post) and asked the fine folks to try this method if they were able. AND the conclusive result is that almost everyone who updated, Powerwashed and tried to claim the Gemini benefit on their Chromebook Plus got it – regardless of the date of purchase!

There are a couple that haven’t made it yet, but they’re outside the US. Both of their countries are on the fine print approved list, so it should work; but I’m still not sure why it isn’t right now. However, Vast majority of those who have tried this method have had success and there is a very good chance that you could too.

Simply backup your local files, update to ChromeOS 125, and then proceed to Powerwash your Chromebook. Once you’re all set up again, head over to the Chromebook benefits page, click on the big Gemini offer at the top, and hopefully you’ll be able to take advantage of this awesome deal.

But do it sooner rather than later! There are always layers to these kinds of menus, and there may be deeper reasons why Google didn’t intend to enable this menu on older Chromebook Plus devices. While I strongly disagree with this view, I have no idea how long this window will remain open. Don’t miss it!