Google has been shipping free AI tools at a pace nobody in the space is matching. Most of them replace software people still pay hundreds of dollars a year for. Here are 14 worth knowing, what each one actually does, and where the free tier holds up.
A quick heads up before the list: two tools that were on everyone’s “free Google AI” list a few months ago, Gemini CLI and the consumer version of Gemini Code Assist, were retired on June 18, 2026. Google folded both into Antigravity CLI, which is now the free replacement. I’ve kept both in the list below with the current status so you know exactly what to install.
1. Pomelli: your website becomes your marketing team
Pomelli reads your website URL, builds what Google calls a Business DNA profile (colors, fonts, tone, image style), and then generates on-brand social posts, ads, product photos, and campaign concepts. Built with DeepMind. Free public beta in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. If you have been paying for Canva Pro plus a copywriting tool plus a stock photo subscription, this hits three of those in one flow.
2. Mixboard: Pinterest, but the images make themselves
Mixboard is an AI moodboard powered by Nano Banana. You start with a prompt or a template, pull in your own images, generate new ones, and edit them with plain language (“make this warmer,” “swap the couch for rattan”). Free, US public beta. Useful for interior planning, brand direction, event themes, and any early-stage concepting that would normally live in a messy Pinterest board.
3. Stitch: describe an interface, get the code
Stitch turns a text description into a UI mockup and hands you the HTML, CSS, and Tailwind that produced it. It also does image-to-UI. Free while in Labs. Good for founders sketching product ideas without a designer on payroll, and useful as a fast starting point before pushing into Figma.
4. Opal: no-code AI apps you can share with a link
Opal lets you chain prompts, models, and simple logic into a working AI mini-app, then publish it with a link. No code required. Free, US-focused Labs experiment. If Zapier and a lightweight app builder had an AI baby, this is roughly it.
5. NotebookLM: the study buddy that also makes podcasts
Google’s list of tools calls it “Gemini Notebook.” The actual product name is NotebookLM. Upload PDFs, videos, slides, or notes and it produces summaries, mind maps, quizzes, briefing docs, and Audio Overviews (an AI podcast built from your own material with two hosts talking through it). Free tier is generous. Plus tier comes with Google One AI Premium if you want more sources and daily limits.
6. Learn Your Way: personalized lessons from any PDF
Learn Your Way takes a textbook chapter or PDF, asks for your grade level and interests, and rewrites the content around you. You can flip between immersive text, narrated slides, an audio lesson between an AI teacher and student, a zoomable mind map, and adaptive quizzes. Google’s own research trial showed 11% higher retention after three days vs a standard reader. Free research experiment.
7. Google AI Studio: your free API sandbox
Google AI Studio gives you a free API key, a 1M token context window on Gemini, and a UI to test prompts, tune parameters, and ship simple apps in minutes. If you have ever wanted to prototype something with an LLM without paying anyone, start here. The free tier is enough for most side projects.
8. Antigravity: Google’s agent-first IDE
Antigravity is a VS Code fork that runs autonomous coding agents. You describe a task, agents plan it, write across files, run terminal commands, test your app in a built-in browser, and report back with screenshots. Antigravity 2.0 shipped at Google I/O 2026 as a standalone desktop app with a CLI, SDK, and multi-agent orchestration. Free tier with generous Gemini 3 Pro limits. Paid Pro is $20 per month if you want more.
9. Jules: hand it a GitHub issue, get a PR
Jules is Google’s asynchronous coding agent. Point it at a GitHub repo, assign it a task, and it writes a plan, executes the changes in a sandbox, and opens a pull request for review. Free tier available. This is the closest free equivalent to what people pay Devin or Cognition for.
10. Gemini CLI: retired, meet Antigravity CLI
The original open source Gemini CLI stopped serving individual, Pro, and Ultra users on June 18, 2026. The replacement is Antigravity CLI (the agy binary), which reads your codebase, runs multi-agent workflows in the terminal, and shares the same backend as the Antigravity desktop app. Free to start. If you had gemini wired into scripts or CI, migrate before your automation quietly breaks.
11. Code Wiki: docs that update themselves
Code Wiki points at a public GitHub repo and generates a structured, always-current wiki with architecture diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and a Gemini-powered chat that knows the whole codebase. It regenerates after every commit. Free public preview for open source repos. A private-repo CLI extension is on a waitlist.
12. Gemini Code Assist: also retired for consumers
The individual, Pro, and Ultra tiers of Gemini Code Assist IDE extensions stopped serving requests on June 18, 2026. If you want free AI code completion inside VS Code or JetBrains from Google today, the path is Antigravity’s IDE plus Antigravity CLI. Standard and Enterprise licenses still work if your org has them.
13. Firebase Studio: cloud and backend, AI does the setup
Firebase Studio is the browser-based dev environment that grew out of Project IDX. Prototype full-stack apps, wire up databases, auth, and hosting, and let AI handle the boilerplate. Free tier is enough to ship real projects. Solid pick if you want a “just build the thing” workflow without spinning up cloud config yourself.
14. Whisk: concept art in three swipes
Whisk takes three images (subject, scene, style) and blends them into new visuals. It reads the images, describes them for you, and then generates variations you can remix. Free through Google Labs. Fastest way to get moodboard-quality concept art without touching Midjourney.
Pricing
Every tool on this list has a free tier that is genuinely usable. Paid upgrades only come into play at scale: Antigravity Pro at $20 per month, NotebookLM’s higher limits via Google One AI Premium at $19.99 per month, and Firebase’s usage-based cloud pricing once you’re past the free quota. The Labs experiments (Pomelli, Mixboard, Stitch, Opal, Learn Your Way, Whisk) are free while in preview.
Alternative Tools
If any of these are region-locked for you or you want a different feel, the paid tools most people are replacing are worth naming: Canva Pro and Jasper sit closest to Pomelli and Mixboard. Cursor and GitHub Copilot compete with Antigravity and the retired Code Assist. Cognition’s Devin is the paid analogue to Jules. DeepWiki is the closest thing to Code Wiki. Midjourney is the obvious paid comparison for Whisk. And for study workflows, Perplexity Spaces overlaps with NotebookLM and Learn Your Way.
The point isn’t that Google’s tools are always better. The point is that most of them are free, most of them are good enough to replace something you’re paying for, and almost nobody has actually tried them yet.

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