Four sentences, one product line
Google has closed its paid coding assistant to new customers. The entry in the Gemini Code Assist release notes is dated 9 October and headed “Sale of Gemini Code Assist subscriptions is ending”. It says that from that date, new Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise subscriptions can no longer be purchased; that existing subscriptions will continue to auto-renew through the rest of 2026, but auto-renewal will end in 2027; and that for alternative AI developer tools, customers should use Antigravity, available through eligible Gemini Enterprise subscriptions and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.
That is the whole notice. There is no transition pricing, no migration tooling, no stated path for teams on multi-year procurement cycles, and no mention of the free tier or of Code Assist for individuals.
The second half of a consolidation that started in May
This is not a surprise so much as the other shoe. At Google I/O in May, the company announced that it was folding its developer tooling into the Antigravity brand and retiring the standalone Gemini CLI and the Gemini Code Assist IDE extensions.
That announcement, dated 19 May, set 18 June as the date on which Gemini CLI and the Code Assist IDE extensions would stop serving requests for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers and for individuals using Code Assist at no charge, and the date after which Gemini Code Assist for GitHub would stop accepting new installations on GitHub organisations.
Business customers were carved out. “If your organization uses Gemini CLI or our IDE extensions via a Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise license,” the post said, “or if your organization uses Gemini Code Assist for GitHub through Google Cloud, your access remains unchanged.” Google added that it would keep supporting those customers, including access to the latest Gemini models.
October’s note is where that carve-out starts to close. The licences themselves are not being switched off, but no one new can buy one, and the renewal mechanism that keeps existing ones alive stops working after next year.
What it costs a buyer
The substance of the change is not the brand. It is where the replacement sits in Google’s price list.
Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise were sold as a developer product: a team could buy seats for the engineers who wanted them. Antigravity, by the release note’s own wording, comes through “eligible Gemini Enterprise subscriptions” and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. An organisation that bought Code Assist for its engineering department is therefore being pointed at a company-wide enterprise agreement, which is a different procurement conversation and, for most buyers, a different number.
Whether that works out cheaper or dearer depends on the contract, and Google has not published a comparison. What it has published is a date: auto-renewal ends in 2027, which gives existing customers roughly a year to find out.
What to watch is whether Google issues migration terms for Code Assist licence holders before renewals stop, and whether the free and individual tiers that the October note does not mention get a notice of their own.
