My assumption would have been that it was default-off, the user didn't know about it at all, then found out about it through this thinking leak.
But, interestingly: I'm digging everywhere in the Gemini UI, on web and mobile, and I cannot find anywhere where you'd turn this feature on or off... on a Workspace account. Does that make a difference? I don't know. Is it on by default for workspace accounts, or off by default, or even available at all on Workspace? No idea.
Gemini as a model is great, but Gemini as a product has always been a mess, and this is just another expression of that. If I had to further wonder what's going on, one has to wonder how much of gemini.google.com is written by Gemini.
>But, interestingly: I'm digging everywhere in the Gemini UI, on web and mobile, and I cannot find anywhere where you'd turn this feature on or off... on a Workspace account. Does that make a difference? I don't know. Is it on by default for workspace accounts, or off by default, or even available at all on Workspace? No idea.
From the support.google.com link above:
>... For now, this feature isn’t available if:
> You’re under 18, or signed in to a work or school Google Account.
> You’re in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom.
Fair. As a lifetime workspace user, essentially never having had a normal google account, I'm very used to it at this point.