Google is making its AI subscription plans a little more interesting for developers. Google Colab is now part of the Google AI subscription lineup, giving subscribers access to premium Colab benefits without requiring a separate Colab subscription.

Starting September 22, Google AI subscribers get priority access to faster accelerators and more powerful machines in Google Colab. That means workloads that depend on compute resources can get preferential access to better hardware, which could be particularly useful for machine learning experiments, data science projects, and other compute-heavy development work.

Google AI Ultra subscribers get additional perks. The top-tier plan includes uninterrupted background execution and Premium GPU access, allowing longer training jobs to continue even when you aren’t keeping a Colab browser tab open.

That last part could be especially handy for machine learning work. Instead of having to leave a browser window running while a lengthy training job finishes, Ultra subscribers can let the workload continue in the background.

Google is also positioning Colab as another piece of a much larger Google AI subscription bundle. Alongside premium Colab benefits, Google AI plans include expanded cloud storage, access to more of Google’s capable AI models, additional Gemini app features, Workspace integrations, and premium access to developer tools such as Google Antigravity and Google AI Studio.

There is also some good news for people who already pay separately for Colab. Google says existing Colab subscriptions aren’t changing, and the benefits from a Google AI subscription can be stacked with an existing Colab subscription, providing additional access to premium Colab features.

The new benefits aren’t arriving everywhere at once. Google says they will roll out over the next few weeks to Google AI subscribers in countries where Colab is supported.

For Google, the move makes its AI plans less about simply getting access to Gemini and more about bundling an expanding collection of tools for people who actually build things with AI. Colab now joins that bundle, putting more computing power directly behind the subscription.

Happy coding, indeed.