Most people I chat with don’t use all the AI features being forced on them in Google Workspace.
I’m the same, always closing the sidebar pop-out, dismissing the annoying notifications across the top, sending the announcement emails to spam, etc.
At least when they started rolling out the AI features, they were an optional paid upgrade.
I’m assuming hardly anyone upgraded to them.
So they forced them into the tools for everyone (no option to hide them).
And then due to this ‘significant added value’ increased the prices.
I just went through a bunch of my Google accounts, downgrading them to Starter where appropriate, and cancelling where possible.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall internally when they are checking adoption and cancel/downgrade telemetry. It’s such a frustrating and hostile period we are in with subscription models now.
The playbook seems to be:
- add AI features everywhere (that nobody wants or asks for)
- increase prices to reflect this ‘ added value’
I think there’s an opportunity for SaaS companies to promote a new ‘remove AI and save’ model. I’d certainly consider switching to a company that respected my choices and gave me options I actually wanted.
UPDATE: 27 October 2005 – so good to see the ACCC taking Microsoft to court for the way they implemented this ‘forced value’ onto customers.
