Google throttles free access to Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro due to ‘overwhelming demand’

If you’ve been enjoying the powerful new capabilities of Gemini 3 Pro and the viral Nano Banana Pro image generator, you might have noticed things getting a little tighter lately. Just a week after their launch, Google has quietly updated its access limits for free users, citing “high demand” as the reason for the cutbacks.

From ‘5 Prompts’ to ‘Basic Access’

When Gemini 3 Pro first launched, free users were given a clear allowance: up to 5 prompts per day with the new model, matching the previous limits for Gemini 2.5 Pro. Additionally, users could generate up to 3 images per day with the impressive Nano Banana Pro model.

Now, those specific numbers are gone. Google’s support documentation has been updated to state that free users now have “Basic access” to Gemini 3 Pro. What does that mean? It means “daily limits may change frequently” based on server load.

The limit for image generation with Nano Banana Pro has also been explicitly reduced. Free users are now capped at a hard 2 images per day (down from 3).

NotebookLM features rolled back

The capacity crunch is hitting other tools, too. Earlier this week, Google announced a temporary rollback of the new Infographics and Slide Decks features in NotebookLM.

• Free users: Have lost access to these features entirely for the time being.
• Pro users: Are seeing “additional limits” implemented.

Google stated, “Due to the overwhelming demand, we’re experiencing some capacity constraints… however we plan on bringing everything back to normal as soon as we can!”.

Good news for subscribers

If you are a paid subscriber, you can breathe easy. There are no changes to the usage limits for Google AI Pro (100 prompts/day) or Google AI Ultra (500 prompts/day) plans. This move is clearly designed to prioritize paying customers while Google scrambles to bring more compute capacity online.

VIA: 9to5 Google