Google AI Ultra Lite (“Neon”) — mid-tier Gemini subscription discovered

Summary

A macOS app teardown discovered Google is preparing a new “AI Ultra Lite” subscription tier (codename “Neon”) to slot between the $20 Pro and $250 Ultra plans. Expected pricing around $100/month. Includes a usage dashboard for real-time token budget tracking. Not officially announced — likely an I/O 2026 reveal.

Implications

The pricing gap between $20 and $250 has been a structural problem: power users hit Pro limits but can’t justify Ultra. Neon fills the gap and creates a three-tier consumer ladder ($20/$100/$250) that maps to casual/power/enterprise. The token budget dashboard is the consumer equivalent of Cursor’s spend tracking — governance at the individual level. Combined with Workspace Intelligence (real-time context across apps), Google is building a context-centric pricing model: you’re not paying for model access, you’re paying for how much context the model can use. Feeds the token economics competition thread.