It’s official: the rumours of Bard being rebranded as ‘Gemini’, in sync with the release of Gemini ‘Ultra’ have proven to be true, per Ars Technica:

Bard is now called Gemini. It’s still an AI assistant. It can write, code, and generate images. By default, it still uses the “Pro” model under the hood (and in the free version). But if you pay for “Gemini Advanced,” you get access to Gemini Ultra (now called “Ultra 1.0”), its most complex and capable AI model, according to Google. To pay for Gemini Advanced, you have to sign up for a subscription plan called Google One, which costs $19.99 a month. Google One began as a cloud storage service but is now roping in AI capabilities as part of its membership perks.

So if you want to play, Google wants to you to pay. Is Gemini Ultra worth it?

Read the report here, another from The Verge, and the announcement from Google.